


The Dreamers

by SheilaPaulson



Series: Game of Humanity / The Dreamers [2]
Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-11-19
Updated: 2002-11-19
Packaged: 2018-12-15 18:40:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 38,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11811939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SheilaPaulson/pseuds/SheilaPaulson
Summary: Sheila Paulson's Series E sequel to "Game of Humanity."





	The Dreamers

**Author's Note:**

> Note from oracne, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Hammer to Fall](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Hammer_to_Fall), a Blake’s 7 archive, which has been offline for several years. To keep the works available for readers and scholars, we began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after June 2017. We posted announcements about the move, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on the [Hammer to Fall collection profile](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/HammerToFall/profile).

In the nightmare, Avon stood on a hilltop overlooking a narrow valley, surrounded by a primitive tribe of hairless aliens with a greenish cast to their skin. He was disgusted to observe that he looked as primitive as they, clad in rough, homespun trousers, a headband to restrain long, shaggy hair, and handmade sandals. He was tanned and lean and fit looking, and he carried a spear as if he knew how to use it.

Tension ran through him in the dream, making his heart throb with it, as he watched distant running figures approach the valley, led by an equally threadbare, shaggy haired Roj Blake. Even in the dream, pain laced through Avon at the sight of him. Not even in sleep could he escape Blake and his memories.

Behind Blake and his queue of followers thundered a creature out of hell, a gigantic, four-legged behemoth, leathery skinned, with a vast, gaping mouth and a howl that turned one's blood to ice water. As Avon watched helplessly, too far away to help, Blake and his crew led the beast to a concealed pit, and the beast crashed through the covering of woven branches, roaring fearfully. Too close to the edge, Blake all but fell, hanging trapped at the edge of the pit, struggling to climb to safety but the beast shot out a long, probing tongue and curled it around Blake's leg, trapping him. Avon could hear his cry of pain all the way up the hill as the rebel leader was pulled inexorably toward the hungry maw.

"Noooo!" Avon heard his own scream as he began to race down the hill, knowing even as he ran that he would be too late. As he watched, helpless, Blake was drawn into the monster's mouth and Avon halted, submerged in black despair.

In the perverse way of dreams, Avon suddenly found himself trapped inside the beast with Blake and he blinked in stunned surprise as Blake turned, a Blake with a scarred eye and a bloodstained tunic, a Blake with a bitter and reproachful look for Avon. As Avon bent over the collapsing figure, Blake's hands caught him by the arms, dragging him to his knees at the rebel's side.

"Avon," Blake gasped, his breath hissing out in a death rattle. "I have always trusted you...from the very beginning." His fingers dug into the lax flesh of Avon's arms. "Avon...I was waiting for youuuuu." His voice trailed away and his face went limp with death.

"NO!"

This time the shout roused Avon from the nightmare and he struggled free of the tangled blankets, rubbing a hand across his sweat streaked face, and bolted upright, looking around in considerable disorientation as two sets of memories fought for dominance. It had all been so real. He knew he had seen that monster before. Where?

But the present reality put an end to his search for ghosts as he remembered Blake's base on Gauda Prime. He could never forget it, even as it revealed itself to him in varying dreams, though none had produced the confusion recent ones sent through him. He remembered Blake and the beast--but it had never happened. Shaking his head, he staggered across the room and poured himself a drink of water, gulping it so fast that some of it spilled and ran down his chin to drip onto his bare chest. It was bad enough already. Must he remember things that had never been?

As he heard voices approaching, he stiffened, setting aside the glass and forcing composure to his face as he heard them coming, his crew he could not be rid of; Soolin questioning, Tarrant complaining, Vila pacifying. Dayna...well, Dayna was dead. If nothing else, it meant she was safe. She could be hurt no longer.

"...just another of Avon's nightmares," Vila's voice carried though he was speaking softly. Sounds magnified in these chambers, and sometimes a whisper would carry a vast distance and toss an unexpected bit of conversation into a sudden silence. Vila always seemed to find it unnerving.

"Go back to bed, Tarrant," Vila continued in that calm, placating voice he had taken to using to keep the others in line. Tarrant, still wallowing in Blake-ish guilt for his misunderstanding of the situation at Gauda Prime, allowed himself to be so manipulated, as long as it involved nothing really important, and Vila, flown with success, was riding for a fall that he had not yet foreseen. But now he added, "You know Avon won't want you there."

"I don't want to be there," Tarrant objected. "I'd simply value one night's uninterrupted sleep."

"Complaining won't give it to you," Soolin countered. She did not sound as cool and indifferent as she had before Gauda Prime, but then GP had changed them all. Avon seldom allowed himself to think of that or to wonder what it might mean, but he was aware of it.

Tarrant didn't reply and Avon pictured him trudging back to his chamber in irritated frustration. Just as well. He did not feel up to dealing with Del Tarrant.

"You look in on Blake," Vila went on, apparently to Soolin. "He needs his rest. I don't think anything this side of a solium flare would rouse him, but you never know. Run along and see how he is."

"One day, Vila, you will push it too far," she responded, but didn't argue further.

Avon stiffened. Vila's voice had dropped when he had mentioned Blake's name, but Avon had heard him anyway. He suspected he would have heard it had the name been whispered on the planet's surface in the middle of a thunderstorm. Sometimes it felt like the very rocks called it to him.  _"Blake...Blake...Blake..."_  He was surrounded by accusations, not the least being his own subconscious mind that would not let him sleep at night.

"Avon?" Vila's voice was tentative and faintly sympathetic; he never dared outright sympathy, and Avon did not know if that was out of concern for him or out of resentment for Malodaar. The shuttle incident was never mentioned between them, but sometimes there were shadows in Vila's eyes, and Avon knew the reason for them without being told.

"Leave me alone, Vila," Avon returned. He was uncomfortable with the others now, especially Vila. Blake... No. He had not seen Blake though the others told him Blake lived and recovered. He did not want to see Blake. He was not entirely sure he believed them, and even if he had been willing to take the risk, it was clear that Blake did not wish to see him. Slowly recovering from the wounds Avon had inflicted on him on Gauda Prime, Blake was cared for as best they could by the others here in their bolthole, the best one they could find when the ship they had stolen had proven defective--or booby trapped. Landing on a remote world, unsettled and uninhabited, they had taken shelter in a series of underground caverns that had at one time been part of a Federation base. Orac had reinstated enough power for them to survive, and Blake was kept warm and sheltered. Their ship was beyond repair, but Orac, in the fullness of time, would locate rescue for them. They were not yet ready. The others had voted and decided that until Blake was on his feet, they would stay here. Avon was not asked to participate, and he doubted he would have done so if asked. He wanted no part of any plans for the future. Just now he wanted one thing and that was to be rid of them. Over four years of wanting that same thing proved that he was unlikely to get it, but at least he could keep his distance from the others for now. As for Blake, as long as he wanted no part of Avon, Avon was safe from him, and he was safe from Avon.

But it hurt. Never one to admit such things even to himself, Avon had finally been forced to realize that the agony that stirred his mind while he slept and brought the dreams all tied to Blake. Avon chose to take it no further than that, but he knew, though he never brought the realization out into the cold light of day, that Blake was right to hold him at bay. He had betrayed Blake, betrayed their friendship. He had never admitted that there actually was a friendship between them, but the dreams insisted upon it.

There were endless visions of himself and Blake, sitting talking like old friends, comfortable with each other. There were scenes of peril, Blake missing and returning battered and dirty to receive a hug from Avon in his relief, incidents of the green skinned natives interacting with himself and Blake, familiar scenes as if he knew them well, could almost remember their names. But it had never happened.

Was he insane then? Was that what the dreams told him? Was that why the others tiptoed around him as if he were fragile glass, ready to shatter at a breath? Did they fear he had slipped from overstress to insanity and that was why he had shot Blake? Perhaps they were right, and the memories that had no basis in fact only proved it. So he avoided the others, holding them at arms length, but they were accustomed to that and did not seem to realize that he was beginning to doubt his own sanity.

He knew he had come close to a breakdown before. When Anna lay dead in his arms, when he pursued Vila through the stripped down shuttle over Malodaar, when he stood face to face with Roj Blake and heard him called traitor. But those kind of incident could affect anyone. Put even an insensitive clod like Tarrant into those positions and he might have come close to the edge too. Avon might not welcome the memories of those incidents and the way they haunted him in dreams, but he could understand them. What he could not understand was a whole world and people he felt he should have remembered and did not.

Sometimes the insane created their own imaginary worlds inside their heads. Avon had always been based in reality, no matter how grim the reality had become. But not now. It frightened him. It almost frightened him enough to make him ask Vila to stay, to sit with him while he slept. But even insane there were limits and admitting dependency upon Vila was one of them.

"Won't leave you alone," Vila said stubbornly, rinsing out Avon's glass and pouring something into it from a flask he had carried with him. "Here. Put yourself around that. You look like you need it."

Avon's face denied the need, but he drank the liquor anyway, gasping as it burnt its way down. "Where did you get this?" he demanded when he could speak. "Did you make it this morning?"

"It tastes like it," Vila agreed. "But it's all I could find here. Orac says it's safe."

"By safe, I presume you mean it is not poisonous. I doubt it is safe for your liver." He put down the glass unfinished, but he was grateful for the warmth that seeped through him.

Vila pocketed the flask without sampling it himself and Avon had to concede that Vila had not shown any signs of drinking since they had landed here. With this as his only recourse, it might be understandable, but Vila had displayed no discrimination in the past.

"Aren't you having any?" he asked with a sarcastic curl to his mouth.

"I don't drink," Vila returned. "Not any more." He was serious. He meant it but was not disposed to explain. Avon was curious, but to ask questions was to be involved and he had already asked one too many. He merely looked at Vila, who waited for the question and then sighed faintly when it did not come.

Avon went over and splashed water on his face. He hoped Vila would take the hint and leave, but Vila didn't.

"Don't you want to know why I'm not drinking then?" the thief prodded him, standing his ground.

"Not particularly."

"It doesn't matter. I'll tell you anyway. It's because I'm in charge." He paused dramatically, waiting for Avon to contest his challenge, but Avon didn't. It didn't matter, did it? "Well, I am," Vila went on. "The way Tarrant's acting, he's like Bl--like Blake at his worst," he finished defiantly, refusing to back down. "Blaming himself for everything. Maybe it's tied in with Zeeona too. That hardly had time to hit him before we went to Gauda Prime. We were too busy and everything happened all at once. Now we've nothing but time to think--and he's thinking of Zeeona. And Dayna. If Dayna--if she was here, I think she could help Tarrant, but she isn't. And none of the rest of us can. Maybe  _you_  could, but you won't."

"Tarrant is not my concern," Avon returned flatly.

"Nothing's your concern," Vila snapped. "Except Blake. Ever think of taking your turn sitting with him, Avon?"

Oh now, that wasn't fair. That stung. Avon had heard Vila speaking to one of the others, saying softly, "Blake doesn't want to see him," and knew that Blake could only mean him. He could understand it, but it hurt to have Vila rub his nose in it. Everything that had happened had pulled all the scabs off Avon's many wounds and he felt raw and sore inside, unable to defend himself against this kind of attack. He stood there helplessly, avoiding Vila's eyes.

Vila froze. He crept slightly closer and stared at Avon. "He's getting better, Avon," he insisted with more sympathy than he had displayed so far.

Avon turned away refusing to respond Vila's heavy sigh. "This discussion serves no purpose, Vila," he said. "I do not wish to see Blake and he does not wish to see me, so further attempts to mend fences is a waste of time not befitting someone who claims to be in charge."

"What makes you think he doesn't want to see you?" Vila persisted.

"Were I in his position, I would be the last person welcome, Vila," Avon explained patiently as if to a halfwit. "But in any case, I heard you say so to the others. Now go away."

"That was right at first," Vila protested. "Changed his mind, hasn't he?"

"If he has, then he is a bigger fool than I ever thought." Avon stalked over to his bed, got into it and closed his eyes.

"It's you who's the fool," Vila cried. "Or maybe it's you who's the coward. Always thought it was me, but I was wrong, wasn't I? Blake can't come to you, Avon. He's not well enough to get up yet. But you can go to him."

"I won't."

There was a little silence. Avon hoped Vila would believe him asleep, though anyone who would interpret the rigid tension of his body as sleep was a bigger idiot than the little thief. Vila made no such mistakes. "Tomorrow, Avon," he said as if laying down the law. Then he turned and let himself out.

Tomorrow. Well, tomorrow, they would have to carry him into Blake's room bodily. Avon tried to relax, but his body was vibrating with tension. It took him hours to drop off into sleep.

The little green people and the friendly Blake awaited him there.

*** *** ***

Roj Blake awoke early. His sleep came in snatches these days, punctuated by twinges of pain in his abdomen when he turned or shifted in the night, and after each such awakening, he lay and tossed and turned until he could return to sleep. Lately he was sleeping better but the pain could still rouse him.

To make it worse, he was dreaming a lot. He would have understood it if his dreams had always included the debacle on Gauda Prime, but that was rarely a part of the nighttime parade. Oh, it happened but not as often as he had expected. Instead, he saw a different picture, a strange planet with a tribe of natives who seemed quite friendly, and, more surprisingly, Avon, friendlier than Blake ever remembered, at least back on the Liberator. He was at a loss to explain it. The last thing his subconscious mind should dredge up was dreams in which he and Avon were good friends. And the Avon of the dreams was a friend. Blake dreamed of instances where he and Avon had talked companionably for hours, once even discussing Anna Grant. There were dreams of him and Avon enjoying a water fight in a small lake, shared laughter, story telling around a campfire while the natives listened avidly. It could have been an interlude in his past, so vivid was it--but he knew it had never happened. It must be wishful thinking. Not surprising perhaps when he had pinned all his hopes on Avon and then felt them come crashing down when Avon had arrived braced for betrayal and had shot him without waiting for an explanation.

Only as he fell did Blake realize how it must have sounded to Avon, especially since Avon had been primed by Tarrant's warning. The boy hadn't understood, there had been no time to tell him, and Avon, always ready to believe in betrayal, had listened to him, unwilling to take the risk of trust. But bitterness chased Blake into the darkness, and when he astonished himself by reviving to find the blonde girl who had been with Avon sitting with him in an unfamiliar cavelike room, resentment toward Avon was his first emotion, even beating out surprise.

Soon Soolin had Vila and Tarrant in here with him explaining how they had managed to break out of their cells on Gauda Prime and how in searching for the rest of his companions, Vila had discovered Blake in one of the cells, where he had been treated and left to heal on his own. It was apparent a medical schedule was maintained, but there had been no attempt to heal him quickly. It might have been deemed a waste for someone who was to be executed anyway. Vila insisted that they could not leave without Blake, and when Soolin had observed that it would cut their chances of escape, Avon had said flatly that they were taking Blake, and Tarrant had backed him.

Fleeing in their stolen ship, they had ordered Orac to rig the computers to make their pursuers believe that the vessel's departure was legitimate. There had been no pursuit. But once in space, it became evident that their escape had been much too easy. The trouble came slowly at first, but the further they went the more they realized that the ship had a problem. Tarrant, evidently a very gifted pilot, had nursed the vessel along as far as possible, aided by Orac, but eventually had been forced to search for a suitable planet to land. Suddenly there had been no time and they were lucky the only planet within range was also habitable by humans, though it was deserted. The landing was not an easy one.

"For a good pilot, my reputation is getting bad," Tarrant observed with a wry grin. "My last two landings have left the ships in pieces."

"But us alive," Soolin reminded him. "And you did put us down near the only shelter on the planet."

Blake had looked around the room he was in; three of the walls were bare stone and earth and only one, the corridor wall, was manmade. "What is this place?" he asked.

"It was a Federation base before the Andromedan war," Vila explained. "Orac got that much out of what's left of the computers here. During the period of regrouping after the war, this base and a lot of others this far out were abandoned. It was after that the pacification program was begun and there was no need to reopen this place. It was too far from the main starlanes and with the fleet strength down, they simply left it alone."

"Won't we be tracked here?"

"No chance," Soolin replied complacently. "Orac reports that the ship was free from tracing devices, and we took a random course when we left GP. If the fleet was at full strength they might find us, but I think we've got a grace period. Orac monitors the activities of Space Command for us."

"Not without protest, I'll wager," Blake remarked, smiling slightly as he recalled his experiences with the recalcitrant computer.

"A lot of protest," Vila agreed. "Avon had to threaten to dismantle him to get him to agree."

Blake tensed at mention of Avon's name, as he had earlier when he had been told it was at Avon's insistence he had been rescued. Before he could stop himself, he said, "I don't want to see him."

The others exchanged meaningful glances, and Vila nodded. "All right, Blake." It was only later that Blake realized that Avon probably wanted to see him no more than he wanted to see Avon and that if he had not insisted on his ban, the others would have needed to make excuses for Avon's continuing absence.

But that had been three weeks ago. During that time, Blake had spent a lot of time with the other three, learning to know Soolin and Tarrant and renewing his acquaintance with Vila. There had been no trace of Avon, though once or twice, Vila or Tarrant had brought Orac by. Orac had not changed at all, and in a universe where everything seemed back to front, that was a truly reassuring note.

But Blake was beginning to be curious about Avon. After the first day or so, the others had started talking about Avon, and the picture they painted had finally convinced Blake that Avon did not deserve the hostility as he was displaying. Avon had changed, and if he was not quite mad, he had certainly become close to it, a fact to which Blake was all too willing to testify. With all the pressure Avon and the others had been under, perhaps it was no wonder that things would get out of hand so quickly, and as the others talked, a reluctant sympathy began to develop, first for them and finally for Avon himself.

Vila was an inveterate talker and even had Blake wanted to shut him up, it was doubtful he would have succeeded. Vila needed to let it out and he did, and so Blake heard about Anna Grant's death, the destruction of the Liberator, the loss of Cally, the events over Malodaar. Blake was shocked, but he saw what almost amounted to a pattern forming and wondered once or twice if some puppeteer hadn't been running the crew of the Liberator. Once he accused Orac of manipulating them for its own studies, and while Orac denied it, the computer was fascinated with the possibility and set to work to investigate it. Blake suggested such an overall pattern might have been worthy of Servalan, but Orac could find no record of anything but a string of negative results that were seemingly unconnected.

It made him regret his earlier refusal to see Avon, and while he had not quite managed to forgive Avon for shooting him, he had begun to believe that he might eventually do so. He doubted he could succeed without Avon's actual presence and a chance to discuss the incident however, and if Avon knew of his earlier ban, his arrival was the most unlikely event Blake could think of. He rather suspected he would have to go to Avon, and since his few attempts to get out of bed had produced only a few tottering steps under the supervision of Tarrant or Vila, he doubted that would be at any time in the immediate future.

The longer he and Avon went without confronting each other, the harder it would be, especially for Avon, and while he was not as sympathetic toward Avon as he might once have been, a tentative easing of his hostility had begun to creep in. Part of it was due to the dreams, which showed him another possible reality. It had never been--at least he could not remember it--but might it not be possible?

Blake could not help thinking of his base and his people and wondering how many of them had managed to escape, but the years since he left the Liberator had embittered him and he found it difficult to remember the man who had once insisted on freedom for the rabble. The rabble, he had learned, were not particularly grateful for his efforts, and time had tarnished the golden dream. Once he would have lain here impatiently, eager to get back to work, but now he welcomed the respite and when Vila, expecting him to be eager to go out and save the galaxy, tried to counsel patience, Blake found himself unable to respond with the eagerness the thief expected. After the first few times, Vila had stopped mentioning it, a strange look in his eyes, and Blake wondered if the thief, never very keen on the Cause, was actually disappointed in him.

Blake thought about the dreams a lot. They were safer than anything else, though their view of Avon was not safe. Wistfully Blake thought of the dream Avon, a man who had learned he could trust Blake enough to lower his guard around him, not completely because that was not Avon's nature, but more so than he had ever done in reality. It had been a friendship Blake cherished.

It had never happened. Even with the gaps left in his memory by his programming, Blake knew he could never have forgotten something like the incident on The Top of the World. It would have been a prized interlude, and he suspected that, given something like that to fall back on, he would have made a concerted effort to return to the Liberator after Star One instead of choosing to let himself disappear. If he and Avon had developed a bond like that, Blake would never have shattered it.

His Cause was no longer the obsession it had once become, but it had been strong enough then, strong enough for him to risk the deaths of millions of people in order to prove his belief in it. Under the impetus of such an obsession, might he have abandoned even such a friendship as he saw in the dreams? Could he have blocked it out? He tried a few tentative questions of Vila, to see if there had been any such incident, but Vila had looked vague and blank when Blake persisted as if he didn't understand what Blake was pushing for.

So Blake dropped it. He would have welcomed the chance to discuss it with Avon, but the chance never came and the more Blake thought of it, the more he was convinced it was just a dream. The Avon in the dream would never have shot him. The Avon in the dream would have welcomed any possibility of an explanation from Blake, would have given less credence to Tarrant's wrong conclusions. No. Even changed as he was by the blows life had dealt him, that Avon would have waited for Blake's response. It was nothing but wishful thinking.

The door slid open to admit Vila Restal carrying a breakfast tray. The thief paused in the doorway and cast a nervous glance over his shoulder, and Blake, intrigued by the first sign of the old timid Vila since he had revived, smiled and said, "What is it, Vila, are you hoping to sneak in here and poison me before anyone wakes up?"

Vila let the door slide shut. "Noises," he said ominously. "This place is haunted."

"Have you seen any ghosts?" Blake asked with sudden good humor. He had heard noises from time to time too, but they were the easily explained noises that come with the running of machinery and the fact that they were underground. Acoustics in this place were strange too--sometimes when the door was open, he could hear the odd echo and know that the rock formations were somehow transmitting the distant voices of the others. Once in awhile he would be able to understand an actual snatch of conversation but usually it was just a remote mumble and Blake no longer heard it consciously except in the wee hours of the night whilst trying unsuccessfully to sleep. Then he would lie there wondering who was up and stirring.

"You don't usually  _see_  them," Vila replied darkly setting the tray on the stand beside Blake's bed. "But you know they're there."

"We've been here three weeks and they haven't harmed us yet," Blake reminded him, levering himself up with wary caution so as not to put too much strain on his healing wounds and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. When this only produced a slight weakness, he felt a surge of triumph that was magnified when he realized how hungry he was this morning.

In noting his progress, Vila forgot his preoccupation with ghosts and goblins and things that go bump in the night. "You're better," he pointed out. "How did you sleep?"

"Better than the night before," Blake realized in some surprise. "A lot of dreams and I woke a few times, but better than before."

"Dreams, eh?" Vila asked sententiously as if he were a consulting medic. "I have them too. Things I haven't thought about for years. Adventures in the juvenile detention center, things like that. Hardly ever about Malod-- about anything unpleasant."

"It's strange, isn't it?" Blake asked in agreement between mouthfuls of his breakfast. "I'd have expected nightmares too, but most of my dreams aren't nightmares. They're remarkably pleasant. I'd almost exchange them for the reality." Not completely though. Having lived with tranquilized dreams for several years, Blake was determined to meet reality head on, even if it proved unpleasant. At least he'd know it was true.

"Do you want that roll?" Vila asked. The old food processor on the base worked reasonably well most of the time, testifying to the abruptness with which the base had been abandoned, but occasionally something putrid would emerge instead of the expected meal, and the sight of this morning's delicious breakfast was acting on the thief.

Blake snatched it up before Vila could reach for it. "Yes, I'm going to eat it," he said and did so while Vila watched him in ill concealed disappointment. "Do you seriously believe this base is haunted?" he asked more to avoid any discussion of their current situation than because he really believed it.

"I've heard things when everyone else was asleep," Vila said darkly. "Once I went to see if someone was up. But all of you were sleeping and I could still hear voices muttering far away."

"A trick of the acoustics," Blake suggested. "Maybe it was only Tarrant snoring."

"Nobody could confuse Tarrant snoring with a muttering sound," Vila disagreed, pushing aside Blake's empty tray and dragging up a chair with one foot. "Maybe we're not the only ones here," he concluded dramatically.

"They haven't bothered us then."

"Yet." Vila looked at the walls of stone and earth that surrounded them. "I don't like it underground."

"It's no different from space, Vila, and you never minded Liberator."

"It  _is_  different. Liberator wouldn't fall on your head and crush you. Mark my words this place is haunted, see if it isn't. Mind you, they haven't been unfriendly yet and they haven't caused any trouble, like moving things about and getting into the equipment. Avon would have fits if Orac's key started vanishing or if the lights started going on and off." He fell silent rather abruptly. "I hope I haven't gone and given it ideas."

Blake laughed, clutching automatically at his stomach though the pain was less today. "Don't make me laugh, Vila," he protested.

Vila's expression was a comical one of mock hurt. "I was  _serious_ , Blake," he declared.

"I'd like to see the day when you were serious."

"You have, then," Vila persisted. "I'm in charge here, remember. This is my base. I have to be serious. If this base is haunted, it's my job to find the ghosts and find out what they want."

"Vila Restal, ghost hunter." Blake marveled at the concept. "Perhaps you should recruit Avon. No self respecting ghost would dare appear to him."

He caught himself, amazed at how easily he had fallen into the old patterns when talking about Avon. He knew it wasn't over yet, because if he had truly fallen back into the old ways, he would not be forever catching himself up short. It was unfinished and it bothered him. "Vila," he began.

"I think it's time to wake Tarrant," Vila said brightly and began edging toward the door.

"Wait right there. I want to see Avon."

Vila looked at him unhappily. "Blake, I..."

"You're in charge, Vila. You said so. Make him come in here. He and I must talk. The longer we wait, the harder it will be."

He half expected Vila to back down and admit that he wasn't in charge after all, but Vila surprised him. He stiffened his spine and met Blake's eye with a determination that had been rare back on the Liberator. "I'll do what I can. I've tried, Blake. He heard you didn't want to see him at first, and now I think it would take something like a neutron blaster to get him here. He's still hurting, Blake. Shooting you hurt him as much as it hurt you and I think you're better able to handle it. He knows he did the wrong thing and he's never been any good with guilt and regret. He pretends it doesn't matter, but it does. I think he's afraid you'll tell him you never want to see him again and that you hate him. Even if he pretends he doesn't care about any of us, he does. I've known Avon a long time. He's afraid to take the chance. But I'll do what I can. Maybe I can, well, manipulate him in there."

"You've become devious, Vila."

"Had to, didn't I?" Vila plucked up the tray from its stand. "Why don't you see if you can get dressed today. Soolin unearthed a mobile chair in one of the storerooms and you can use it to get about and rest when you're tired. I think you're sick of this room."

"Heartily sick of it. I can dress myself but I don't have anything."

"You can do like the rest of us," Vila replied, pointing at his solid black attire. "Federation uniforms. All that was available here, though Avon found some civilian garb in his size. Trust him to manage that. I think Soolin's outfit belonged to a mutoid once. But we can't be choosy. She brought some things that should fit you." Vila pointed to the closet with his free hand. "Want help?"

"I'll manage. Where's the chair?"

"Just outside in the hall. It's power controlled."

"Shall I come looking for Avon then?" Blake asked, the question intended for himself as much as it was for Vila.

But Vila took it seriously and paused, his hand on the button to open the outer door. It slid open and in the sudden silence, both of them could clearly hear the distant muttering sounds that Vila had complained of earlier.

"It sounds like underground water to me," Blake commented. "I'd say this place was built to take advantage of an underground river since a viable base would need its own water supply. See if you can find me a blueprint of the base and I'll go over its structural specs. It will give me something to do."

Vila looked relieved. "I'll have Avon and Orac dig it out of the computer," he volunteered, adding more thoughtfully, "And I'd wait a bit before you come looking for Avon. Let me give it a try first."

Blake found the suggestion restrictive. If Avon came primed to the meeting, Blake would be denied Avon's natural, instinctive reaction and he found he wanted that. He could deal with Avon more honestly if he could observe Avon's gut reaction to the meeting. So he temporized thoughtfully. "We'll see. I'll dress now and have a rest. You do what you have to do, and get me those plans."

Vila eyed Blake suspiciously, nodded and went out.

Cautiously Blake slid off the edge of the bed and put weight on his feet.

*** *** ***

Tarrant and Soolin exchanged speculative glances and moved into the corridor from the rest room as the distant muttering sound started, eyes narrowed and considering. "Vila says it's ghosts," Soolin pointed out, her eyes twinkling slightly.

"Vila has a big imagination," Tarrant returned. If truth were told, he was not comfortable with the sound either, but he didn't want to show it. "Maybe we should track it down."

"Have you heard it before?" she asked, pulling out her clipgun and checking the charge. Though Vila had discarded his gun once they had confirmed that the base was deserted and Tarrant only wore his when he was on watch, Soolin's and Avon's never left them. Human nature, Tarrant decided, though the thought of Avon with a gun had made all of them a little uneasy at first. Then, one day, an unexpected noise from an empty room startled them all and Soolin's gun flew into her hand as she went to investigate. Turning to Avon, since he was weaponless at the moment, Tarrant was astonished to see Avon's hand frozen over the weapon, still undrawn.

"If you don't mean to use it, I'll take it," Tarrant had said in an undertone, and Avon, obviously startled, raised his empty hand and stared at it blankly before he pulled the weapon deliberately. His grip was less than steady and Tarrant looked with dawning realization as Avon made himself come to terms with a weapon. He had shot Blake and hadn't been required to use one since then. Now, he was clearly remembering the incident and just as clearly finding it unpalatable.

Soolin checked the room professionally while Tarrant was coming to his conclusions and when she emerged she was holstering her weapon. A stack of books on a chair had toppled over and there was no trace of footprints in the dust of the deserted room to suggest that someone had been hiding away and done it by accident.

Vila and Avon had converged on the books and both of them had come away with a stack of them, and once they were done, Tarrant hunted through them himself, finding several pre-Second Calendar histories which he had enjoyed in his room at night, but not even they could distract him from the sight of Avon unable to draw his gun. If someone was really here on the base, or hiding nearby, Avon would be a dead loss, and that was Tarrant's fault.

"I don't think it's anything real," he replied to Soolin's question, "But I've heard it a time or two and I'm not sure what it is. Some kind of acoustical feedback maybe." Soolin frowned. "We've been assuming this place was deserted after the Andromedan war when the Federation was consolidating what remained of its power, but maybe we've been going about it wrong. Do you think that there could be...something here that, well, drove them away?"

"If so, it's taking its time." Tarrant didn't care for the idea. He felt exposed and vulnerable here suddenly and he resented it, for this place had felt a safe haven until now. "Vila will have us all jumping at shadows before we're through."

"I'll jump at shadows any time," she said. "It's better than assuming nothing is wrong and waking up with your throat cut."

"Cheerful this morning, aren't we? I have a better idea. We'll ask Orac."

"Avon isn't up yet. Remember he had a disturbed night and he won't be in the best of moods."

"We're accustomed to that. Besides, Avon might have left Orac in the control room. We'll go see, and I can pick up my gun in the process."

She fell into step with them and they headed for the base's control center.

They found Orac where they had expected it, but the activator was conspicuous by its absence. Tarrant gave Orac's casing a frustrated swat, more annoyed than if Orac had not been there at all. Over the past few weeks, he had managed to rein in his continual irritation with Avon, knowing he'd had a large part in the debacle that was Gauda Prime, but guilt and regret were rapidly fading as Avon seemed sullen and remote, occasionally surprising them with a scathing remark. He felt sorry for Avon and for Blake, and knew it was partially his fault, but weeks of attempted atonement had done little to alter the situation and, unlike Blake, who Vila said made a habit of it, Tarrant preferred to work past his guilt. It was more than time.

"It's not much good to us, is it?" Soolin had been more patient lately, but this morning was not one of her better times. Soolin functioned best when there was something to do, and here the only tasks were routine base maintenance and sickroom duty, neither of which appealed to her. Tarrant didn't much like sickroom duty either, but he was fascinated by Blake.

After all the times Liberator and Scorpio had gone off looking for Blake, it seemed unbelievable that they had finally found him, though the events following the finding should not have surprised him. Avon had gone steadily downhill after Cally died, and Tarrant suspected he and Dayna and Vila stayed with him only out of momentum. Vila and Avon might have been friends once, but toward the end, all traces of it seemed to have vanished. Here on this base, Vila was unbending again and displaying concern for Avon, but Avon did not respond to it. He spent his days working with Orac, improving the security of the base and planning their eventual escape. Once he had been heard to remark that this might make a good base from which to pursue the rebellion, ending that, of course, he had no interest in it. When Tarrant had slowly raised his head and given Avon a knowing look, he had received a scornful list of complaints about his supposed inadequacies, to which he had chosen not to respond. But he didn't know how much longer he could keep his temper under control.

The echoing noises seemed to have stopped. Tarrant cocked his head, listening. Nothing. Maybe it had to do with the wind on the surface. He resolved to make a trip up sometime during the day and see what the weather conditions were like.

Vila joined them abruptly, as if he had been running. "There you are," he said unnecessarily. "I went by your quarters, Tarrant, and you were gone. Have you seen Blake?"

"Not this morning. Why? Is he worse?"

"He's gone," Vila replied.

"Gone!" burst out Soolin. "You mean--"

"I told him about that chair you found and showed him some clothes and when I popped back, the chair was gone and so was he. Have you seen Avon yet this morning?"

Tarrant began to grin. "So Blake's gone looking for him?"

"I wouldn't smile about it if I were you," Soolin argued, edging toward the door. "You know what Avon's like. And he's armed."

"Small threat that is," Tarrant muttered. "I've seen him with a gun."

"You haven't seen him with Blake," countered Vila stubbornly. "I don't think it's a good idea, Tarrant. Maybe we should go after him."

"He may not have gone after Avon," Tarrant suggested, failing to convince even himself. "He might have wanted a look at this base."

"No, he wanted a look at Avon."

"Then let him have it. The rest of us will have no peace until they've come face to face. Avon won't seek out Blake, so it's up to Blake."

"Avon might not be quite sane," Soolin objected. "I think I should stop them."

"No, leave them," Tarrant insisted. He wasn't certain why he was so determined for them to meet unless the thought of a possible reconciliation could absolve him from his own responsibilities in the matter of the shooting, but he thought it was best to leave the two of them to it. His certainly made Soolin pause, but Vila stared at him with narrowed eyes, no longer concerned with concealing his intelligence and playing the fool.

"You'd better be right about this, Tarrant," he said threateningly.

"I hope I am," he said seriously. "I hope I am.

*** *** ***

"Avon?"

The quiet voice startled Avon as he turned to the door of his quarters, but he concealed his surprise and presented Blake with a smoothly blank face, hiding the sudden turmoil of emotions that churned through him.

"Blake," he returned. Alive, I see."

"No thanks to you." It was obviously an automatic response, but Avon could detect no trace of regret in Blake's voice. For a moment he did not reply, simply drinking in the sight of Blake, a living Blake, though he was too pale and too thin, dependent on the wheelchair for the moment, and looking much older, with a good deal of grey threading through the dark curls. The scarred eye was disconcerting as if he was facing an impersonator who had created such an obvious difference as a distraction, but Avon knew he was stalling for time. This was the real Blake. He could see it in Blake's eyes, feel it in the aura of the man who had haunted him for two years after Star One, who had pulled at him and driven him, and finally forced Avon to shoot him. He should have known better than to expect that to end it all. Their deaths were linked, and life was Avon's persistent companion and enemy these days. He had never even lost consciousness in Blake's base, though he had been struck by at least one stun bolt. Dazed and torpid, he had stood his ground over Blake until the troopers had dragged him away by main force.

Now Blake was here, and Blake was not looking friendly. Avon should have expected that--he had expected it, there being nothing else valid to expect, but his raw sensibilities were not prepared for the sudden flood of pain at the realization. Blake had come here to condemn him, and Avon, who did not have it in him to plead for forgiveness, was reduced to standing before the man he had nearly killed, staring at him helplessly. He struggled to keep the pain from his eyes, suddenly remembering the Blake of his dreams, a man who would have sensed Avon's pain no matter what control Avon put over it and who would probably have come charging over to shake some sense into Avon and hugged him for good measure. A part of Avon that he had long believed dead felt a sudden greedy hunger for that bit of human warmth and comfort, and refused to admit his need for it.

"No thanks to me," he agreed flatly.

Blake stared back, defiant and unyielding, then his face relaxed fractionally. "Do you want to tell me what that was in aid of?" he asked, propelling the chair into Avon's quarters without invitation so the door could slide shut unimpeded. "Did you come there to kill me, Avon?" His voice was genuinely curious, as if he had detached himself from the more personal aspects of the whole thing--such as three large holes in his middle--and was concentrating on it as a theoretical question. Avon took it to mean that his motivations were important only in that they explained a certain perplexing puzzle, and his resentment grew.

"As it happens, no," he said in a careless, throwaway tone. "I came there to find you, but I found a fool. 'I set all this up,' you said. The ideal response from a bounty hunter to a wanted man."

"Oh, is that it?" Blake asked scornfully. "A little misunderstanding? You're very quick with the trigger, Avon. I told you once I always trusted you. I can see I'll need to revise that."

"What the hell did you  _expect_ , Blake?" Avon demanded, his temper beginning to elude him. "I didn't know how you'd changed in the time we'd been apart. You'd always demonstrated a remarkable susceptibility to programming. I had to go slowly, to learn the truth. I had people dependent on me. You forced Vila and Cally upon me and the others came along. I wanted to find you--to give them back to you, so I could finally be free of you, damn you. But you'd changed, even more than I expected. The old Blake would never have doubted that I had changed as well. But that never occurred to you, did it? I needed more security than, 'I was waiting for you.'"

"Oh well, I'm sorry, Avon." The sarcasm cut like a knife. "I didn't realize your intellect had slipped so far. You never needed everything spelled out to you in the old days. You came to be free of me, you said. It appears you nearly found a permanent way to manage it."

Avon glared at him. "It would, had I considered it that way. I was told you betrayed me. I don't take kindly to betrayal. You should have remembered that, Blake. You were still around when I encountered Tynus. My 'old friends' are safe from me as long as they do not threaten me."

"It's more than my life is worth to be one of your old friends, then, Avon," Blake said sternly. "Apparently more than Vila's as well."

Avon went rigid as if Blake had slapped his face. "Vila is not your concern," he hissed, for all the world like a snake about to strike.

"Vila wouldn't agree with you. He hasn't given up on you. I can't imagine why."

"Perhaps you never understood Vila," Avon returned, knowing his defense of Vila was as much an attack of Blake as a display of loyalty to the thief. "You certainly never valued him properly. But then your 'followers' often enough met untimely ends even back on Earth. You alone survived not just once but twice. Convenient. I'm sure Gan never had a chance to consider that before he died."

"Damn you, that's not fair! What happened back on Earth was beyond my control."

"Was it indeed? Maybe you played word games with the Federation like you did with me. How hard would it have been, Blake, to have answered a straight question with a straight answer? 'Is it true?' I asked you. Is that so hard to deny? Or would your answer have been yes?"

"I never betrayed you, Avon. I swear that."

"Your lack of betrayal has come too close to fatality too many times, Blake. I am not impressed."

"Obviously." Blake lay a hand protectively over his healing wounds. He looked down at his hand then raised his eyes to Avon's. "I see this was a mistake. I should have known better than to expect that you'd regret what happened."

"Oh, yes, I do regret it, Blake," Avon returned. "I regret the whole thing. You weren't worth Dayna dying for. Now get out of here. You've outstayed what limited welcome you might have had."

Blake turned the chair so abruptly that it jarred his wound and he had to bite back a cry of pain. Avon heard it and started forward involuntarily, only catching himself at the last minute. Folding his arms across his chest implacably, he fixed his eyes on the middle distance and waited. When Blake had controlled the pain, he activated the chair and the door swooshed open before him. Long after it had slid shut, Avon was still standing there frozen in position.

Damn the man! Even after all this, he still had an affect upon Avon, and Avon resented it furiously. So much easier to remain free and uncaring and to go one's own way unfettered by commitment. Blake had always demanded a commitment for his Cause and Avon, who had managed to avoid belief in the cause with remarkable ease, found that a commitment to the man was far harder to resist. He had come up with excuse after excuse for searching for Blake, the need, at first, to fulfill his bargain and take Blake back to Earth, later the intent to deliver his crew to Blake and be rid not only of them but also the onus of carrying on Blake's blasted crusade in his absence. He had almost  _become_  Blake in this past year, and it had not worked. Now, remembering the man who had just left, he wondered how close Blake had come to becoming  _him_. Though Blake had always been harder than Avon had expected, he had never been so unyielding as he had this time. Avon looked at the closed door and struggled against an irrational urge to kick it.

Maybe it was time for him to set Orac to the task of finding him a ship. He owed the rest of them no more than their safety. Once free, he could direct Orac to free them as well, apart from him. That way he would not have to watch any more of them die, or turn on him, or threaten him, ever again. He would find a bolthole somewhere, a place where no one could touch him. If such a place existed...

He tried to block out the images of the dream Blake. How different the reality from the dream. How impossible to believe that the two could ever be reconciled. How foolish to hope that they might. He slammed his fist down on the tabletop so hard he broke the skin and for a moment he stood there, watching the blood and almost savoring the pain before he went to wash the wound and bandage it.

_We should both have died, Blake. It would have been easier that way._

*** *** ***

Uneasily Vila prowled around the base. Having decided against his better judgment that Tarrant was right and that an encounter between Avon and Blake might clear the air, he gave them time to meet and discuss what needed to be discussed, then he went along to Blake's quarters, but Blake was not there. Gathering his courage, he headed for Avon's room, but when he pushed the buzzer for admittance, Avon called, "Go away." He sounded so final that Vila, who had faced death so often in such a short time that little had the power to faze him, decided some chances were too great to take. Heaving a sigh, he abandoned Avon for the moment and went in search of Blake.

He finally found him two levels up, in the observation room that looked out over the surface of the planet. Here near the base, it was bare of all but the most rugged plantlife, a terrain of jagged hills surrounding empty little valleys, some carved deep by long ago rivers. The soil was a dusty yellow and the hills were red where the topsoil had eroded away leaving wicked scars as if the planet were bleeding. Blake had dimmed the lights and Vila saw him only as a silhouette against the flexiglas viewport, his shoulders slumped with misery or weariness, or both.

"Blake?"

"Vila," Blake acknowledged his presence without turning, and he sounded both angry and defeated as if he had fought as long as possible and resented losing but saw no other alternative.

"You ought to be in bed." Vila felt a sudden ache of sympathy for the man, who might have deserved a lot of things but who had not quite deserved being shot and who did not deserve whatever Avon had done to him now. Vila knew that Avon regretted the shooting, that it was eating him up inside. That was obvious to anyone of the meanest intelligence, let alone to someone as crafty as Vila, but he also knew that Avon was not the type to show it, especially to Blake. Had Blake been conciliatory, Avon might have managed an apology, but Vila doubted Blake had been. He hesitated, torn between comforting Blake and shouting at him in frustration.

"Just leave me here, Vila," Blake returned in a lifeless voice.

"Fat lot of good that'll do, Blake. What did you do, go in and start flinging accusations around? Avon on the defensive is hardly likely to make peace with you."

Blake turned then and even in the dim light, Vila could see traces of tears on his cheeks. Disconcerted, the thief hesitated, for once at a loss for words, though tears would come more easily to a convalescent. Then Blake dashed them away with an angry hand. "I dream about him. Avon. I dream about him every night, and we're  _friends_ , Vila. We're on a primitive world someplace, and we trust each other. It feels like it actually happened, but it didn't. I'd remember if we'd been gone from the Liberator for months, wouldn't I? I'd remember if Avon and I had become close friends?"

"It's just a dream, Blake," Vila said sadly. "We're all dreaming a lot. It might be a release of pressure, or it might be something in the air. You and Avon weren't gone missing for months. I'd remember it too, and I don't."

"It's the damned contrast," Blake snapped out. "In the dream he was always  _there_  for me. I was hurt once--a giant flying reptile attacked me--and he risked his life to save me, climbing out on these great granite spires above a vast abyss. And he stayed with me even when the wista came, until we could reach the cave safely."

Vila frowned because these sounded like real memories, not the stuff of dreams. "The wista?" he prompted softly, unwilling to break Blake's stream of remembrances.

"It was as big as a scoutship, with a mouth that would have swallowed the teleport bay on Liberator without difficulty. It came out when the moons were full and ate people indiscriminately. The Greens were terrified of it."

"I'd have been terrified of it too," Vila agreed with a rueful grin. "What did you do, Blake, decide it had to go?"

Blake looked up startled. He had been deep in his memories. "The Greens were afraid," he recalled. "They only wanted to hide. They weren't accustomed to working cooperatively. It was every man for himself. I--decided to intervene."

"Surprising," muttered Vila. What was all this? It seemed far to real for dreams.

"Avon was furious with me," Blake went on, and before Vila could decide if he meant then or now, Blake added, "He didn't want me to be at risk. He argued around it every way he could, but it was always to protect me. To protect me, Vila. Isn't it a joke, when the first chance he got, he shot me."

"Not without encouragement on your part, Blake," Vila burst out, reluctant to allow Avon to take the full blame for Gauda Prime. "All it would have taken was a simple explanation. He was riding the edge and you tipped him over. What did you do now? Go in there and throw it in his face?"

"He threw it in mine," Blake returned. Then he shook his head. "No, it was more of a joint effort. I've forgotten how to talk to him, Vila. I genuinely wanted to make peace with him. After listening to you and the others, I realized how I must have sounded."

"Did you tell  _him_  that?"

"He hardly gave me the chance."

"Oh, come, Blake, you're slipping. You never had any difficulty getting your meaning across to Avon in the old days."

"You've said he's changed," Blake defended himself, then as if he realized the problem with that argument, he plunged on, "Changed to be even more unpleasant."

"No," Vila disagreed, though the memory of Malodaar mocked him. "Or not only that. Unpleasant, yes. But he might not be quite sane, Blake. So much went wrong maybe none of us are. Sometimes when I think of Malodaar, I want to hate him, but lately I can't manage it any more. I'm angry at him but I can't quite hate him."

"I'm not sure I can manage that, Vila."

"No? It would have been easier for you if it had been any of the rest of us who shot you, wouldn't it?"

"The rest of you wouldn't--"

"Wouldn't we?" Vila grasped the arms of the chair and turned Blake so he was facing him directly. "I came almost as close as Avon did. Don't you think I came to GP expecting betrayal, Blake? Don't you think I was used to it by then? The only reason Tarrant didn't have a go at you was because it wasn't a personal betrayal for him, though it was pretty near. He'd heard so much about you that you disillusioned him thoroughly. He won't tell you himself but the woman he loved died in a particularly nasty way right before we came after you, and then he lost...Dayna there. He and Dayna were always close. You might have been the last straw--but you were Avon's. His betrayal had to come first."

"I never betrayed Avon," snapped Blake.

"He didn't know that."

"Well, it's over. It happened and we can't take it back. Avon doesn't want to take it back. I'm not sure it's worth the risk."

"If you made peace with him, Blake, there wouldn't  _be_  a risk." He shook his head. "No, there'd always be risk because life's like that, especially life when you're around, but Avon always protected you before, even when he was loudest about wanting rid of you. Did you know when you and Cally went into the base on Star One and we lost touch with you, Avon insisted on staying down there and trying to find his way in after you? We offered to bring him up but he wouldn't come. I know he saved your life more than once. It shouldn't have been hard for you to reconcile with him on GP. But you made it hard."

"I'm the one with a hole in my belly but it's my fault?"

"Yours, and Avon's and Tarrant's, and the Federation's, if we're assigning blame. I always thought blaming people for things over and done was stupid, but why listen to me. I'm only Vila, and I'm a fool." He heaved a vast sigh. "I used to be Avon's fool."

"I'd say you still were."

"No. Avon doesn't want me now. He doesn't want anybody--except you, and he thinks he can't have you. How much of that--" he gestured vaguely in the direction he assumed Avon's room to be--"do you think was because he wants to make peace with you and doesn't know how."

"None of it. I think you're wrong, Vila."

"You care about him even after everything that's happened, Blake. Why is it so hard to believe that he can't care too."

"Avon never cared."

"Oh yes, that's the safe thing to believe. You never took the safe way before." Vila heaved an impatient sigh. "Except maybe around Avon. We all took the coward's way around Avon, didn't we? Something about him drew us, like moths to the flame, and the risk was always worth it, but we had to be cautious. Maybe we were too cautious. Maybe we worried too much about how he'd react and denied him something he always needed." Vila felt he was getting in over his head, letting Blake see more than he'd shown him before, but Blake was soaking up the words in their own right and forgetting that it was Vila, the fool, the clown, who was speaking them.

"I had to fight the Federation," he said at last. "Something in me drove me to do it and never let me go. But I wanted to do it with Avon at my side. I had to go carefully or he'd find a bolthole. I had to give him the freedom to do that if he chose, even if it meant he actually left. He wouldn't have stayed if he hadn't had that freedom."

"But maybe he wanted you to want him to stay?"

"He would never have respected me if I'd shown weakness, Vila."

"I don't think letting someone know they're valued is weakness."

"Avon might think it is."

Vila opened his mouth to argue then fell silent abruptly. "Blake! Something moved out there."

Blake spun his chair around and they stared out at the desolate planet, looking for a trace of activity. The only thing that moved was the wind, stirring plants and raising little dust clouds. "I don't see anything," said Blake at length. "What do you think you saw?"

"Something at the corner of my eye. I didn't get much of a look, but it looked like something bulkier than one of those nasty bushes waving about." He had an uneasy feeling that it had been something on two legs, but there wasn't a trace of it now. Nervous, he raked the terrain with his eyes, hoping to find something harmless to dispel his growing uneasiness.

"Well, there's nothing out there now. This base has perimeter defenses, doesn't it?"

"This base has every defense Avon could activate plus a few new ones he and Orac cobbled together just to be on the safe side." Vila shivered. "Maybe this place  _is_  haunted."

"Haunted, Vila?" Blake grinned, remembering their earlier discussion. "We haven't been harmed yet. A ghost isn't supposed to have a physical body. How could a ghost hurt you?"

"It could give me a coronary," Vila countered. He didn't like the idea that he had seen a ghost out there, but the alternative was almost worse. There was something strange about this place. "Maybe whatever it was drove the Federation off. Maybe it's some kind of nasty alien, out to suck our blood."

Blake chuckled, relaxing slightly as if Vila's nervous speculations reassured him more than anything else since they'd come here. Vila wished he had meant it that way. "No one's blood has been sucked yet, Vila."

"No, but maybe they're waiting to work us up into a nice healthy state of terror. Maybe they don't suck blood. Maybe they feed on  _fear_."

"Strange that none of us have been really made afraid, then, Vila. You're a bit on edge now but you're half enjoying your theories. Besides, if they want us to feed on fear, you'd think they'd give us frightening dreams instead of such pleasant ones."

Vila's eyes widened as he considered Blake's facetious suggestion. "Maybe they  _do_  give us dreams, Blake. Maybe they feed on dreams so they make us have lots."

"What have your dreams been about, Vila?"

"Nice things," Vila replied promptly. "Kerrill, mostly, and some of my really big scores back on Earth and Freedom City when Avon and I broke the bank."

"Nothing that didn't happen before?" Blake asked.

Vila saw where that was going. "Oh, this and that," he replied, unwilling to give away the few dreams that had been pure wishful thinking such as Cally's survival at Terminal and a different outcome on Egrorian's shuttle. But there had been nothing so complex as Blake's dreams of natives and monsters and a friendly Avon. Odd that Blake would be given a blow by blow story line of something that had never happened while Vila's unreal dreams were merely that, unreal dreams. Blake's seemed like a continuing viscast.

"I wonder why I get the big production," Blake mused.

"Maybe because you've been sleeping more than the rest of us." It made sense, even to Vila, but it wasn't nearly interesting enough as a theory.

"Perhaps," Blake returned thoughtfully.

Vila gave the outside view one more quick scan but saw nothing threatening. "Do you think we should tell the others I saw something?" he asked.

"Yes. We'll put Orac on it. If there's anything to be found, Orac will find it even if it's an unfamiliar life form. It will give Orac something to do."

Vila grinned at the thought of Orac's reaction to that, but as they turned and headed back for the lift to return to the section of the base where they'd been staying, he knew nothing had been resolved.

*** *** ***

Avon stayed in his room for some time, but to stay there indefinitely would have given Blake victory, so eventually he went out with the excuse of finding a meal and retrieving Orac. But when he reached the command center, Tarrant and Soolin were there before them and he checked in the doorway before collecting himself and striding forward.

"Avon. Good morning," said Tarrant smoothly. "I wonder if you could spare Orac for a few minutes. I have a question to put to it."

"If it is as important as all the rest of your questions, I am sure Orac would prefer that you not disturb it."

"It's about the noises we've been hearing," Soolin put in quickly. "We've all heard them, and while they might only be echoes coming down through the rocks, it would be better to make sure."

Protection was a valid motive, and Avon was willing to admit it. "Noises?" he asked. "I have heard nothing." The odd echo in the rocks was only in his head, wasn't it? Perhaps it was real, and that encouraged him, even if the sounds should prove threatening. He took the activator from his pocket and put it in place. "Orac, the others have been hearing strange noises," he announced. "I require you to identify them to put an end to their neurotic little worries."

"They are not neurotic worries, Avon," Orac replied promptly. "They are real sounds."

"Indeed? And you never thought it worth mentioning?"

"They have not proven a threat. I would naturally report a threat to myself, but there has been none."

"Then explain what we are hearing." He saw Tarrant catch that slip and faint amusement light his eyes momentarily before he turned a blandly inquiring look in Orac's direction.

"What we are hearing would prove to be several different things," Orac returned. "Part of it is simply structural noises, the settling of the base, water dripping in underground tunnels magnified by passing through differing strata of rock. This base is old and has not been maintained in the past several years. It is inevitable that the neglect lead to stress and metal fatigue and simple breakdown. While the base is structurally sound at least for the present, it was starting to decay before our arrival."

"You said that was only part of the sounds," Avon persisted. "Explain."

"At this time, I have no explanation. There is an energy here I have been unable to isolate. It is not threatening and it may be a type of life form native to the planet."

"Wonderful," Avon replied. "Did it never occur to you to mention this to me?"

"You did not ask."

Rage rushed through Avon and he would have liked nothing better than to smash Orac, but most of his anger was a result of his meeting with Blake, and Orac was still too valuable to destroy. "In future, you will inform us of any traces of life forms here that might prove inimical to our survival. I want you to concentrate on this potential life form and identify it. You claim to be the greatest computer in the galaxy, a rather grandiose boast. I require you to prove it by solving this problem. I wish to learn if we are in any danger and if a cumulative effect will be harmful. Also start looking for a ship. If we are threatened, we may need to leave here at a moment's notice."

"You are interrupting my work."

"I'll interrupt your work with a blaster if you don't do as he says," Soolin snarled. She could always be counted on to react to danger.

"Really, such primitive tactics are not required."

"Tarrant, we saw something!" Vila burst out, erupting into the room followed by Blake in his mechanical chair. When he saw Avon, he checked just inside the room, but did not withdraw. As Avon stiffened, he caught the sense of Vila's words and turned to the thief with something like relief.

"Saw something?" he demanded. "Exactly what did you see?"

"Orac's life forms, evidently," Tarrant threw in. "What was it, Vila? Surely not hairy aliens."

"Aliens, maybe, but not hairy. Two legged, I saw that much, but it was smaller than we are, and it--well, it glowed."

"Glowed, Vila?" Blake asked skeptically. "You didn't mention that before."

"I wasn't sure, but now that I think of it, I'm sure it glowed and it was that I noticed, not just movement."

"Vila Restal could actually be correct," Orac cut in. "It would be within the parameters established for a potential alien presence on this planet."

Blake turned to the computer in disbelief. "You mean you  _know_  about it," he burst out, outraged. "And you didn't tell us."

"Interesting, isn't it?" Avon asked. He didn't quite meet Blake's look, but he directed the question toward him. "Orac has been keeping secrets."

"You mean Orac's been got at?" cried Vila, taking a few uneasy steps away from the computer.

That was something Avon had not consciously considered before. "Is it true, Orac?" he demanded. "Have you been holding out on us?"

"No, it is not true," said Orac with undue haste, perhaps as if it feared it had found itself on the wrong end of Avon's gun. "My functions have not been interfered with."

"We have only your word on that," Blake reminded the computer.

"I am incapable of lying."

"I should doubt that," Avon disagreed. "As Blake says, we only have your word, and that is not good enough. I will require proof."

"Identification of the life forms will take time," Orac replied in a haughty voice. "I am shutting down now. Kindly do not disturb me while I complete my work." Though Avon knew better than to believe computers had emotions, Orac sounded furiously resentful as if it's integrity had been called into question.

He retrieved Orac's key and pocketed it, then something made him take it out again and set it on the table. He had a sudden memory of the dream Blake smiling and wondered if he had done it to make peace with this less satisfactory Blake in hopes of finding the other one beneath the surface. Foolish. Wasting time on such sentiment was a ludicrous misuse of his time. But when Blake's face softened fractionally, Avon was glad he had done it.

Vila, who always noticed more than Avon had been willing to admit, grinned suddenly and spoke up brightly. "I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm hungry. What do you say to breakfast?"

"I say it's one of your better ideas," Tarrant agreed so quickly that Avon turned and studied him through narrowed eyes. If Tarrant was beginning to show signs of perception, it would require him to rethink his opinion of the young pilot as well.

So quickly that Avon was not sure who had done the maneuvering, they were all seated at the table with plates of food in front of them. Vila had worked the processor with a deft skill, producing only one plate that had to be discarded as the asthmatic machine did its best with the limited resources that still functioned after all this time.

Blake was placed across the table where Avon could not avoid his eyes, and he was distinctly uncomfortable, realizing that the fact he and Blake had been able to deal together briefly over Orac's secretiveness did not mean that anything had been resolved between them. One time he looked up and caught Blake's eye accidentally and he noticed that Blake's eyes looked swollen and slightly reddened. Appalled, Avon looked quickly at his plate. Had Blake been crying! Had it been because of their altercation earlier? If so, why did it disturb him so much? Avon could not remember Blake in tears before, except in the dream, where it had never been sign of weakness. The loss of one of the natives, one whom Blake had been close to, had hit him hard, and it was inevitable that he react to it.

It wasn't real! Damn it, he would have to be more careful, or soon he would be confusing dreams with reality. He must be losing his mind to do that. The Blake who had been his friend was the Blake who appeared in his dreams, not the man who had slashed him with words in his quarters an hour ago. Now Blake sat here calmly, eating a light meal, avoiding Avon's eyes for the most part, speaking to the others when spoken to, smiling slightly when Vila offered his theory that the being he claimed to have seen must have been a ghost.

But the tension between the two of them ran through everything and it was all Avon could do to swallow his food. It was far better than the 'sludge' he and Blake had eaten at the Top of the World, but...

He was doing it again! Enough of this! Pushing aside his plate far too abruptly, Avon stood up so quickly his chair went over backwards with an appallingly loud clatter that caused the others to stab him with their eyes. Feeling rather like a specimen on a pin, Avon glared at them impartially and turned away. "I have work to do," he announced in the general direction of Blake and let himself out of the room.

*** *** ***

Blake stared after Avon in some dismay. Seeing him here in the company of the others proved only that Avon was uncomfortable with them too, not only with him, that Avon was very disturbed, whether about Gauda Prime or about everything that had happened to him was impossible to say. Though he had expected his resentment of Avon to continue, he found that in that instant when Avon sprang to his feet, a look of desperation in his eyes, the resentment became quite manageable. He had not forgiven Avon yet, but he had begun to believe it might be possible. He also suspected that Avon needed his help, and, buoyed by the memories of the Avon in his dreams, he heard himself say, "I'd better go after him."

"Feeling suicidal, are you, Blake?" That was Tarrant, and the question was intended both as a warning that Avon would be difficult and as concern for both of them, something he might have denied if confronted. But this wasn't Tarrant's problem except that he had triggered it on GP. This was Avon's problem, and Blake's, and only the two of them together could work it out.

"No, he's crusading," Vila contradicted, recognizing the mood. "Let him go. Somebody's got to help Avon before it's too late."

"I'm afraid it's already too late," Soolin disagreed. "I've never seen Avon like he's been since he shot Blake."

Blake halted in the doorway and turned to face her. "How do you mean, Soolin?"

"It's as if somebody tore off all the protection he'd wrapped himself in and it took his skin with it." She looked surprised at this flight of fancy but stuck with it. "He's bleeding, Blake. All his defenses are forced right now. He's overcompensating because he can't manage it without. Go easy as you can. I won't quite say I like Avon, but I respect him, and if you destroy him, then better to have left him on Gauda Prime. At least the Federation might have given him a clean death."

Her words cut through Blake like lasers, like the charges from Avon's gun. Gauda Prime had happened, and Blake wasn't the only one wounded there. He had known that but he'd forgotten it. The man he'd known on the Top of the World would never have shot him. Primed by the dreams to expect that, he had got the real Avon instead, changed and twisted by the past few years, lashing out like a wounded animal. Blake reached deep into himself and found compassion for Avon. After they'd made peace, he could learn to forgive, even if he could never forget. But first, he must come to terms with Avon.

Coming to terms might be easier than finding him. Blake was rapidly becoming exhausted on this, his first day out of bed, and though the mechanical chair did all the work, Blake was accustomed to lying down not sitting up. The stress of the moment didn't help either. Drained and weary, he propelled the chair through the base, checking for Avon. Vila hadn't had time to bring him a layout of the place, but he found a computer screen and called one up, discovering that it consisted of four levels, the lowest a storage section where some supplies still remained. The next level was mostly dormitories and the level they used most held officer quarters, the rooms they had taken, and other base functions, such as the control center, computer section, operations room, communications, and the medical section where Blake slept. The level above contained most of the weapons storage plus an underground hangar which would hold several small fleets of pursuit ships.

The computer room seemed too obvious, and the logical solution was the room that overlooked the valley, not a level on its own but one small area above the rocket level. If Avon remembered Vila's comments about seeing something there, he might have come up to have a look, though Vila had not explained where he had seen something, had he? Avon would not have known to look outside, but something drove Blake up and he resisted his need for bed and took the lift to the highest level.

Avon was there before him, standing at the window, his forehead pressed against the glass, one hand resting flat on the transparent surface, the other clenched into a fist at his side. His shoulders were quivering slightly as if he were crying but when he heard Blake's almost silent approach and spun around, his eyes were dry. Tension vibrated through him like the surface of a drum, and he braced himself, his shaded eyes as dark as if they held bits of the nighttime sky.

When he spoke, it was not an accusation but a kind of desperate plea as if he needed answers so badly that he was willing to admit the need, even to Blake. "How do you know, Blake?" he demanded. "How do you know what is real?"

That was so far from what Blake expected that for a moment he was helpless, opening his mouth for the easy answer that didn't come. Then he pulled himself together, regarding Avon with sympathy, his resentment largely gone. "What is it, Avon? What is it that makes you doubt its reality?"

"You," said Avon unhelpfully. "I'm seeing two of you, and I can't tell which is which. The one shouldn't be, but I keep remembering. Oh, yes, I remember far too well. And it's all lies, Blake. Nothing but lies."

"I've never lied to you, Avon," Blake burst out, dismayed beyond words at Avon's vulnerability. Avon caught himself and stared at Blake, pulling himself together with a painful effort.

"Well now, I wouldn't say your actions toward me have been characterized by sterling honesty."

At the accusation, Blake felt his anger rise but he caught himself as he realized it was merely a smokescreen. Avon always attacked when he feared he had given too much away. When he was calm and in control and everything was going well, Avon had no trouble dealing with Blake. It was only when his emotions were involved that he chose to attack. As he had done at Gauda Prime?

Blake felt an unexpected rush of warmth flood through him but the outcome of that particular display of emotion was still painful and he could not open up as much as Avon needed. Instead he opted for curiosity. "Two of me, Avon? You said you were seeing two of me? What do you mean by that?"

But Avon had backed off again. "A little time in your company is enough to dispel the illusion, Blake. That other you never existed. I should know better than to react to it as if it were real." Then the struggle caught up to him again and he sagged against the wall, looking defeated. "I can't tell the difference," he admitted in a voice Blake had never heard from him before. "I always held on, Blake. Even when the others thought me mad, I held on, I fought to survive, to keep going. I told myself it was stress, not madness, and most of the time, I believed it. But then I shot Anna and watched her fall and took her in my arms and I knew that nothing mattered, not Anna, especially not me. I took off my bracelet, Blake, in front of Servalan, and she planned to kill me. I didn't care. That was the first time."

His voice faded and Blake could find nothing to say, waiting almost breathlessly for Avon to go on. "The first time you...doubted your sanity?" he asked gently.

"The second time was on the shuttle. Egrorian's shuttle. Orac suggested Vila met the required weight and I stood outside myself and watched myself hunt him down. Vila. The only one I had left." Blake noticed Avon did not call him a friend even then. "Nothing mattered. Given a choice between Vila and myself, the answer was obvious. Should have been obvious. But I heard myself calling him and it was not me. It was as if someone inhabited my body. I didn't recognize myself...." His voice shuddered away into silence and Blake reached out cautiously to touch him, to offer comfort, scarcely able to believe it was Avon who was pouring out such confidences.

Avon saw the hand coming and froze as if it were a snake or a weapon, and Blake aborted the gesture regretfully. Avon never took his eyes from Blake's hand as it withdrew and came to rest on the arm of the wheelchair. Then he said sadly, "That would have been the other Blake."

Really frightened for him now, Blake said softly, "What do you mean, Avon?"

"He would never have hesitated."

"Maybe no one shot him," Blake countered, but he tried to keep the sting out of the words. "Maybe he hadn't learned caution."

"Don't patronize me, damn you. You know it's not real."

"I don't know anything about it, Avon. I want to help, but I don't know what you expect of me."

"I expect you to be Blake. But I don't know which one. The real one--no. I can't face the real one. The other one--he would have known--would have known--"

"I'll do what I can, Avon," Blake offered. "But I'm me. I'm not the other one. I don't know what you mean. Do you mean the way I was on Liberator?"

But Avon turned away, staring sightlessly out the viewport again at the valley. "It isn't real," he breathed.

The others had told him Avon might not be sane any more, but Blake had never expected such a graphic display. He wasn't strong enough for this; the emotional turmoil was driving him toward collapse and he knew he must rest soon, but he couldn't leave Avon now and the communications device in this room had not been reactivated to call for help. How could he get through to Avon? How would he have done it on Liberator? How would he have done it at the Top of the World?

At that question, he caught himself, stunned as he always was by the evident reality of the memories. That gave him an idea. It was so real to him, and they were all having dreams. Maybe Avon's dreams were as real to him as Blake's were, and Avon, emotionally drained, his barriers crumbling, lacked the resources to deal with it.

"It's just dreams, Avon," he said softly. "We're all dreaming here. None of it is real, but I understand. I have dreams too, dreams about you. They almost seem more real to me than Gauda Prime. Don't doubt reality because of the dreams."

"It isn't just the dreams," Avon countered, though his tightened muscles relaxed fractionally as Blake offered him a possible solution. "I  _remember_ , Blake. I remember when I'm awake. I remember things that never happened."

"So do I."

Avon eyed him doubtfully, and the fragile hope in his eyes unnerved Blake. He hoped he wasn't feeding Avon lies, trying too hard to help when he didn't really understand the problem. Sighing gently, he went on. "I find myself remembering the way you were when we were there, and then I remember Gauda Prime and it hurts all the more because you were my friend." He would never have admitted such a thing to Avon if Avon hadn't needed help so badly. But instead, Avon's eyes narrowed as if he suspected Blake of perpetrating some complex scheme to harm him.

"When we were where, Blake?" he demanded urgently.

"In my dream, it was called the Top of the World."

"Yes," hissed Avon, trying to back away and coming up against the window. "Now I see.  _She_  did this. A drug induced and electronic dream? I wonder, did I ever leave Terminal, or is this simply a continuation. Servalan interfered with my mind, Blake. With my memories. I saw you there, but she said you were never there, that you were dead. I...believed her. Odd, when I had never believed a word she'd said before, when she had just admitted to manipulating my mind. I believed her--because if it was true, if you were dead, it was over. You were safe, beyond her reach, and I was safe because you couldn't hurt me any more. I should have known it was all too easy."

"It's never been easy, Avon. But this is real."

"You'd say that, wouldn't you."

"I'd tell you the truth. I am telling you the truth. Do you remember, Avon? Do you remember the Greens? Do you remember Dannal trailing along in your wake, willing to do anything for you? Do you remember me running before the wista after we dug the trap? Do you remember the pool?" He saw the stunned realization in Avon's eyes and began to wonder. Parts of the memory were still missing, but it couldn't have happened. Vila would have noticed if they had been gone for months.

"All that proves, Blake, is that we have been given the same dream."

"No!" Blake burst out fiercely. "It happened, Avon. I don't understand how it happened or why we forgot it, but it was too real. No dream has that many details. No dream is ever as real as that. No dream ever makes so much sense. Usually dreams shift and things change, and the ludicrous seems believable. But all this fits together. Don't you see, Avon. Reminded of the Top of the World, it hurt all the more that you'd shot me. That's why I was so angry this morning when we met."

"Oh, is that why? Because you're as mad as I am? It can't be real, Blake."

"But you fear it. You have the memories. Now the gates are opened, they're pouring out. Maybe Vila's glowing aliens removed some block in our heads."

"That's farfetched, Blake." But Avon frowned, caught up in speculation, actually considering it. Then he shook his head. "It doesn't matter, Blake. Even if that happened once, it was long ago. Too much has happened since then, too many things have changed. It would be impossible to turn everything around." He began to pull the tatters of his walls around him as if drawing a curtain. "You've tried, Blake. I give you credit for that--or did the others put you up to it?"

"It was my idea," he insisted. "Don't back away, Avon. We've got to make sense of this."

"Oh, we've got to make sense of this, have we? Why? To prove that once upon a time, we had a jolly little adventure on Top of the World--and it meant so much to us that we promptly forgot it and the others didn't even notice we were gone. It must be programming, Blake. If you can't see that, I can."

"It's not programming, Avon. And if it is, why only affect us? Why not Vila too? Or even the others?"

Avon had no answer for that, but his face had grown cold and hard again, all trace of his earlier vulnerability vanished. Maybe he had convinced himself that programming, not insanity made the Top of the World seem so real to him. But Blake knew there had to be more. Programming would not leave them with such obvious gaps in reality. Programming would be more believable, at least in the beginning.

But maybe the programming, if that was what it was, had not allowed for Vila Restal, prepared to discount it simply because Avon and Blake had never been gone from Liberator long enough to have experienced the adventure. Blake could get around everything but that, and he knew that if he could accept the reality on faith, Avon would never be able to do so.

"I think we should ask Orac about this," Blake pressed on. "At least Orac could tell us if we had been programmed. The medical unit here seems well enough equipped." He frowned. "This place was abandoned quickly."

"The war with the Andromedans," Avon began then fell silent. "Or Vila's aliens? Orac will tell us about that as well." His voice held threat and Blake knew that Orac had better be on its toes--what a revolting idea--or else it would fall on the wrong side of Avon, which was a very bad place to be.

"We'll find out," Blake agreed. He sagged in the chair wondering if he had the strength to manage the hand controls to get back to bed.

Avon's reconstructed walls were not as effective as he must have hoped for he suddenly stared at Blake as if seeing him for the first time and frowned. "Look at you. Only a fool would drive himself so close to collapse. Before the others suggest I've done you further injury, I'll take you back to bed." He pushed the chair toward the lift without waiting for Blake to reply. "Of course you were always that way," he went on. "I remember how you'd go hunting kvelits when one of the Greens..." His voice trailed off as he caught himself again and Blake realized how difficult it must be for someone like Avon, who preferred things straightforward and clear cut and unemotional to be reminded constantly of something he could not verify, and to discover himself accepting it as reality. "I know," he said quite naturally. "They didn't know what to make of me."

"I've never known what to make of you either," Avon confessed in a voice that held traces of the Avon from the Top of the World. Blake smiled faintly. That Avon did exist, he was simply deeply buried. Maybe Blake could ferret him out somehow. If nothing else, he had convinced himself it was worth the effort.

*** *** ***

Though Vila looked worried and continued to pace about the room as if doing so could alter the facts, Soolin decided to make the most of an opportunity, so she went over and inserted Orac's key. "Orac, I have a question for you."

When the computer did not respond immediately, Tarrant stopped pushing the remains of his breakfast about on his plate and grinned. "Maybe you should threaten it with your gun again, Soolin."

"That will not be necessary," Orac huffed. "State your question quickly. I am busy."

"Tarrant and I were wondering if you could find out exactly why this base was evacuated. We thought it might have been these aliens you mentioned instead of simply the Andromedan War."

"That will take time. Withdrawing from a base for such a reason will no doubt be concealed in the records. When the information is available, I will inform you. Until then, do not disturb me. I am already wasting too much time on your petty concerns."

"Seems to me your safety is as much at stake as ours, Orac," Vila put in, abandoning his pacing and joining her beside the computer. "If I know my Avon, he won't like it if you hold back anything that affects Blake's safety."

"You mean Avon's safety, don't you, Vila?" Soolin asked skeptically.

"No, he means Blake's," Tarrant agreed with Vila, surely something unique. Vila grinned faintly as he realized it. "I don't understand Avon's reaction to Blake, but after talking to the man as much as I have the past weeks I'm beginning to get a glimmer. He seems diminished, somehow, and it's more than just the shooting, as if he'd learned to be cynical once he and Avon were apart. But there's still enough left of whatever it is that makes a leader for me to feel it. You've felt it too, Soolin. I've seen you come out of his room with a strange look on your face once or twice."

"He irritates me," she responded promptly, unwilling to admit to being drawn to Blake. It was true that the man had something, even battered and half defeated as he was now, but Soolin preferred noninvolvement, having learned the hard way that involvement hurt. She could understand why Avon was the way he was, but she preferred to keep herself under a tighter control. Avon claimed to need no one, to feel for nobody but himself, but he didn't entirely convince her, even at his coldest. He didn't want to care, but he did, and it tore him apart. Soolin chose to avoid involvement altogether remaining cool and distant and amused at the struggles around her, until she met Avon and the others. She still maintained her distance, but lately she had begun to understand the tightrope that Avon walked. Knowing that Blake had caused a lot of Avon's inner conflict, she had studied the man as he lay recovering, and it wasn't until just now when he had announced that he was going after Avon that she began to understand how he could draw people to him and make him followers. She might be able to follow someone like that.

"No he doesn't," Vila argued. "You want to like him, but it's not your way and you're annoyed at yourself because he got to you."

"What are you trying to be, a puppeteer?" she demanded, annoyed still further by such perception from Vila of all people. Maybe there was more to Vila than met the eye, in fact she was certain of it.

"No, he's right," Tarrant agreed, shoving back his plate and standing up. "I feel it myself. I keep going to see him when there's no reason for it. Maybe I hope he'll absolve me for GP, I don't know. But I can understand why Avon looked for him."

A sound in the doorway made them turn and they saw Avon standing there. He looked strange, his face drawn and tense, his eyes almost hollow, but Soolin didn't see the flash of madness that had gleamed out of his eyes when he had jumped up so abruptly and fled the room.

"Soolin, come with me," he said in a voice that brooked no argument.

"Is it Blake?" she asked.

"Yes. He's worn himself out and I want to run some checks on him." He scooped up Orac and went out without looking back, and Soolin exchanged doubtful looks with Tarrant and Vila before she followed him.

Blake was back in bed, changed into his nightwear again, and he looked far too pale, much too fragile. He opened his eyes when Avon entered and Soolin was stunned to see open fondness for Avon in his look. She might have expected tolerance, but not affection, and once again Blake drew her against her will.

"You've been up too long," she said sternly. "We should have paid more attention."

"Avon said I was a fool," Blake replied, his voice weak with exhaustion. Something in his face indicated that he believed it an endearment and cherished it, though Avon looked stern and unfriendly as usual.

"And I was right," he agreed flatly. "Orac," he went on as Soolin busied herself making Blake comfortable and attaching monitors so the computer could get a proper reading, "I want you to assess Blake's condition and state what treatment is needed at this time."

Orac made a disgusted sound that amused Soolin--if Orac had been human, he would have thrown up his hands in exasperation at this new distraction. But Avon would not be gainsaid, and Orac's lights blinked busily as it studied the rebel's condition. Finally Orac said huffily, "Really, such continual interruptions are unnecessary. Blake needs a vitamin solution and he needs rest. I would recommend that he rest quietly until tomorrow and that when he gets up, he limit his time out of bed until his strength can withstand it. Is that all?"

"No, it is not all, Orac," Avon went on. "I want you to assess Blake for signs of programming, and to do the same to myself." He cast a sideways glance at Soolin as if to dismiss her, but she was curious now, and busied herself over the electrodes.

"That will take time. Define the parameters of suspected programming."

"I want to know if there is any type of program given separately that would induce identical dreams in two people."

"Dreams. Fascinating." Orac did not sound as if he thought it so. "In what detail?"

"In great detail as if a period of several months were covered realistically, enabling the subjects to remember events which never happened."

"Initial recommendation is that the subjects cease comparing notes on the dreams and report them to me separately." Orac was interested, and so was Soolin. She could imagine Avon's reaction to dreams so clear that they proported to be memories. He would dread being unable to tell fact from fiction, and she suspected that Blake, with a history of programming already, would resent it fiercely. Though he was almost asleep now, she saw a gleam of it in his eyes.

"Reconnect the electrodes," Orac instructed her. "When Blake sleeps, I will monitor it. It might be possible for me to examine said dreams, especially if they are programming. However, I would tend to doubt programming so extensive that comparisons could recall exact details, especially since the two of you were never captured together except briefly on Gauda Prime during which Blake was too unwell to risk programming."

"What about...Terminal?" Avon asked reluctantly. "Servalan had me down there. She also pretended to have Blake, but later insisted it was a drug induced dream. Is it possible that she  _did_  have Blake and did the programming then?"

Blake roused a little at that. "She didn't have me, Avon. I was working with Deva almost immediately after Star One, and while they might program any gaps out of my memory, they certainly couldn't have stopped all my people noticing any time unaccounted for."

"In any case," Soolin suggested, though she knew Avon didn't want her involved in this, "If you had been programmed at Terminal, why wait all this time for the programming to kick in? If it's dreams you're having, join the club. I've had more dreams since we came here than I can remember in my whole life."

"Pleasant ones?" asked Blake, easing himself into a more comfortable position.

"Very pleasant."

"But nothing to make you doubt it was just a dream?"

"No. There were a few incidents from my life and I remembered them, but the other dreams were only that. They never happened."

"Very well, I will begin my study," Orac announced. "First I will monitor Roj Blake's dream state. It is possible that the energy I have detected here can have some influence on REM sleep. I will induce that state in Blake and monitor the results. After that has been completed, I will hear your dreams, Avon."

"It is imperative that you also check for programming," Avon insisted with a tinge of desperation in his voice. Soolin suspected he sought some tangible cause for the memories, whether programming or alien intervention, to prove his sanity was intact.

"I'll stay here and monitor, Avon, if you'd like," she volunteered.

He nodded abruptly and became the Avon she was most familiar with once more. All vulnerability and concern gone, he turned a cold face upon her and left without speaking.

"He's upset."

She turned quickly to find Blake watching her. "I thought you were asleep."

"Not yet. Perhaps I'm too tired to sleep."

"You need rest. Orac, can you assist."

"Wait." Blake put out a staying hand toward Orac. "Don't be too hard on Avon," he continued. "All this has made him doubt himself. Two sets of memories that would not reconcile are disconcerting enough when you think them simply vivid dreams. When you learn someone else shares them..." His voice trailed off. "I was glad he shared them. It gave me some reassurance." He grinned engagingly. "And something to work toward. But Avon doesn't take reassurance from the unexplainable."

"Nor from anything else I can think of," she agreed, "Except perhaps your survival. Now go to sleep."

Blake smiled faintly and let himself drift. Orac's lights blinked as it set to work. When Blake was asleep, Soolin drew up the room's one comfortable chair and picked up the volume of pre-Federation history that Tarrant had left in the room. Not exactly light reading, but better than sitting here watching Orac talk to itself. She wondered how long it would take.

*** *** ***

Realizing the sense in Orac's instruction that he and Blake not compare notes, Avon went to his quarters, activated the computer and began to write a description of the dreams as best he could remember them. Amazing bits of detail came in, how he and Blake had been about to teleport to the planet Sarken for some R&R and instead found themselves stranded on a world far away, peopled by primitive natives, the Greens, who, terrified by the arrival of large, potentially dangerous strangers, proceeded to attack them. An acid-like secretion in their fingertips had immobilized Avon and Blake had challenged the natives to save him. After that, it had taken time for the natives to accept him and Blake, and at least as long for the two of them to realize that they were effectively stranded here, unable to contact the Liberator, unable to locate any outposts of civilization.

Away from the ship and from Blake's Cause, Avon and Blake had begun a tentative friendship, which grew stronger the longer they remained at The Top of the World. The gigantic wista, which attacked the natives when the twin moons were full, was the only serious threat in the place and it wasn't long before Blake was plotting a strategy to destroy the monster and make life safe for the Greens. In the process, he meant to civilize them, an entirely laughable procedure in Avon's opinion. Yet his growing closeness to Blake prevented him from opposing Blake's plans and he often found himself drawn in. He remembered nights spent telling stories around a campfire in the caverns where the Greens lived. Much of their time was spent hunting for food because the Greens were primitive enough not to have gone beyond the hunter-gatherer state, with no real agriculture.

Parts of his memories were vague and uncertain, especially something about the beings the Greens called The Masters, but that might come in a later dream. But he remembered individual tribespeople as if they had been real, Dannal, the brightest of them, who had attached himself to a reluctant Avon and dogged his footsteps. Oddly enough, Avon remembered that he had been remarkably tolerant of Dannal. Lamak, the headman, had been Blake's favorite, but Lamak had died saving Blake from the wista. Others too, came to mind, each with their own personalities, and Avon frowned as he listed as many of them as he could recall.

But the most vivid parts of the dreams and his memories involved his interaction with Blake. The two of them, the only humans on the planet, had been forced to spend virtually every waking moment in each other's company, and while that was not a situation that would have generally endeared anyone to Avon, in his dreams he was remarkably tolerant of Blake. He was so relaxed around the Blake of his dreams that he suspected he would not have shot Blake at all if the dreams had begun before Gauda Prime. Freed of constraints--and of the audience of the Liberator crew, Avon had unbent to Blake in ways he'd never dreamed possible, deriving great satisfaction from the process. Deprived of his Cause, Blake replaced it with the civilizing of the Greens, but it was not so all consuming as his earlier obsession and whatever had drawn Avon and Blake to each other from the first had a chance to bloom unimpeded.

The dream Avon had frolicked with Blake in the pool, talked to him about his childhood and even spoken to him of Anna Grant. Blake had been a comfortable companion, intelligent enough to be worthy of Avon's attention, challenging enough to keep their interactions from becoming boring, stubborn enough to frustrate Avon and keep him on his toes. Their arguments had mostly been about Blake's determination to rid the Top of the World of the wista, a foolish risk in which he would play a large part, and Avon, who found the idea of being stranded alone among primitives only marginally worse than being stranded alone without Blake, continually reminded him of his responsibility to the natives in order to keep him safe. Blake had seen through it, of course, but it had not stopped him, and he had been lucky to survive the experience.

Avon stopped keying in his memories then for he discovered he had none after the wista's death, other than the appointment of his shadow, Dannal, as the new chief. Odd that the dreams would end so abruptly when everything else had been consistent in their reality. Avon frowned, then, saving the data, he shut down the system and went in search of Vila.

*** *** ***

Vila had spent the morning looking over his shoulder wherever he went in fear of glowing beings who might suddenly pop into sight and hurt him, though he wasn't sure what would happen and why it had waited so long. If Orac was right that there were intelligent beings here, Vila found the idea of staying here very unattractive, but they had no means of escape.

He had to admit that this place hadn't hurt him so far, and that it had given him nice dreams. But there was more to life than nice dreams, and for all he knew, the aliens might have been lulling them into complacency so they could do something nasty at their leisure. Maybe they'd suck away their consciousness or eat their brains or something nasty like that. Vila shivered. Whatever it was, he didn't want to stay around to find out.

So it was that the self proclaimed 'leader' of the base jumped almost half a meter when a hand came down on his shoulder as he sat nervously trying to make sense of a book he'd retrieved from the pile they'd found in one of the rooms.

"Avon!" he burst out when he realized who had touched him. "Don't  _do_  that. I thought it was the aliens, come to suck out my brain."

"Hardly, Vila. You need have no worries on that score."

Vila's face darkened. "Think you can insult me, do you? Well, I won't have it. I told you I was in charge, didn't I?"

"Not for long."

Vila hid a grin. All along he had been waiting for Avon or Blake to challenge his assumption of leadership and been dispirited when neither of them had bothered, but from the way Avon was looking now, Vila doubted it would take much longer. There was life in Avon's eyes again, though it was a wary and tremulous life, half afraid to risk the light of day. Maybe, just maybe, Avon was coming back, and Vila didn't want to show his elation too soon, for so many things might go wrong with his ideal scenario that he didn't want to get his hopes up.

"So you say," he returned darkly. "What d'you mean, creeping about and giving me heart failure anyway?"

"Sarken, Vila. Do you remember the planet Sarken?"

Vila considered it. They had been to so many planets that many of them had run together, but that name rang a bell in his mind. "Sarken," he mused, trying to pin it down. "Sarken...Sarken. Oh yes. That's the place with the teleport malfunction."

Avon tensed, focussing on Vila with an almost obsessive stare. "Teleport malfunction?" he echoed, as if trying to pin it down in his mind. "Yes. You and Blake teleported down to the planet but you disappeared and you were missing..."

"You said Blake and I had never gone missing," Avon accused, recalling the incident now. "But we were only gone a few moments," he objected.

"You were gone four bloody hours. We scoured every inch of that planet and couldn't find a trace of you, then you were back, and you were both funny afterwards, at least right at first."

"I recall the planet. Blake insisted on shore leave and I went against my better judgment. The teleport put us down after scrambling our atoms for four hours." His eyes narrowed. "Or longer."

"It wasn't longer, Avon. We were there and we knew how much time it was. Orac was fascinated. He ran some tests on you afterwards and said there were conflicts that he could not resolve, but we all put it down to the teleport problem. You had the thing apart half a dozen times making sure it didn't happen again."

"In my dreams, Blake and I were teleported to The Top of the World, a primitive planet where tribesmen dwelt atop a gigantic mesa. We were there for half a year."

"You didn't look any different when you got back," Vila argued. Why would Avon insist that his dreams were real? He didn't understand it and it worried him. Frowning, he leaned forward to study Avon's face. "Blake's dreaming too. Is he dreaming the same thing?"

Avon nodded reluctantly. "Orac is running tests," he admitted, and Vila was surprised, for Avon had never been one to confide unnecessary details, and now he was giving Vila far more information than the situation called for. Perhaps he was so desperate for verification that it didn't matter what he said to Vila.

The thief took a deep breath and asked uneasily, "Are you all right, Avon?"

At once Avon closed up again, favoring Vila with an unfriendly glare. "Orac will ask you questions about the Sarken incident," he said. "Try to remember anything about it that you can."

"How can I do that when I don't even have a brain for the aliens to suck out?" Vila countered.

To his delight, that won him a faint smile, but Avon squashed it immediately and went out without another word. But Vila sat back, aliens forgotten, and considered Avon. Now that he had something to focus on, he seemed to be getting better. If something had happened during those hours he and Blake had been missing on Sarken, it would explain a lot of things, such as Avon's reactions at breakfast. Vila hoped so. He vowed to get hold of Soolin and question her at the first opportunity.

*** *** ***

Tarrant was bored. Nothing much seemed to be happening on the base. Soolin was closeted with Blake and Orac running tests, Avon was in his quarters doing some computer work and Vila was mooning around looking for ghosts. It was up to Tarrant to investigate Vila's possible sighting of an alien. Vila might claim to be in charge, but Tarrant had been trained for command and he knew that being in charge meant getting things done. So he armed himself and kitted up for a trip to the surface.

He met none of the others on the way there which suited him fine. He had left a message on the main computer to explain where he had gone in case he had trouble, and so, prepared for possible threat, he left the shelter of the base and stepped out into the crisp and dusty air of the planet.

The only sounds to shatter the silence were the wail of the wind and the rustle of the dusty bushes as they were whipped back and forth. Tarrant braced himself against the near gale and set out, looking for footprints. After the first moments, he knew it was useless. The ground was too hard to take tracks and the surface dust was whipped around so much that a footprint would last only seconds before it was obliterated. Frustrated, he checked his portable scanner for life signs. He had adapted it as best he could to register energy forms, and though no expert, he knew enough for that. At first he picked up nothing, but then a reading began to show.

Tarrant headed in that direction. He wished he had a way to contact the base, but they had found no hand-held communicators and they no longer had their Scorpio teleport bracelets. He could have gone back for reinforcements, but now that he was here, he was determined to go on.

It wasn't very far. Walking around the shoulder of a hill, he saw a glow of golden light. As if sensing his presence, it damped down, but he had seen it, not one form but perhaps half a dozen, with the requisite number of arms and legs, all glowing brightly. Now, though he stared, he had only a sensation of flickers of light out of the corners of his eyes, as if he had squeezed them tightly shut and saw afterimages against his eyelids.

Checking the scanner, he noticed that the energy was registering at the same level it had before. So they were still here. If they could render themselves invisible, perhaps they had been walking among them on the base all along.

No one had been hurt. Though Tarrant felt the urge to draw his gun as a sign of his authority, he left it in his holster. If these beings had walked among them and failed to hurt them, Tarrant didn't mean to greet them with force. Though he felt an uneasy urge to race for shelter immediately, he stood his ground and said, "I mean you no harm." He felt rather silly speaking to the empty air, but at his words, a quiver flickered across the scanner register as if there was a reaction.

"We didn't know you were here before," he went on. "My name's Del Tarrant. We've taken shelter here until one of us is well enough to travel. If we've invaded your territory, it was unintentional, and if you want us to go, we'll do it as quickly as possible."

No response, only the flickers he had felt before. Maybe they couldn't understand him. "Is there any way we can communicate?" he asked.

So slowly that at first he thought he was imagining it, one of the beings began to glow again, emerging right in front of him. It was much more humanoid than he had expected, an upright biped with two eyes, a nose and a mouth in the same places humans had them, but there were no visible ears, and though the body gave no sign of wearing clothes, no sex organs were visible. It had narrow hands and feet and its head was longer and thinner than a human head. It came no higher than Tarrant's chin.

Sounds came to him suddenly, a high, melodious ringing sound, like wind chimes, and he realized the creature was talking to him. No, he couldn't understand that. He wondered if Cally, as a telepath, might have done better, because surely telepathy must transcend language, but Cally had always seemed to speak Terran when she sent to him, so perhaps that wasn't true.

"I can't understand you," he admitted reluctantly. "Can any of you speak my language?"

The being raised a hand and seemed to point away from the base, then back to Tarrant. "You want me to go that way?"

Again the gesture, but this time the creature's hand caught his arm. Tarrant tensed as he felt a vibration run through him as if he were operating a high power drill but there was no pain. The creature pulled at him lightly, without sufficient force to drag him along, and Tarrant realized he still had the option to withdraw. But now he was curious. "All right," he agreed. "I'll come with you."

As if his words were understood, the other beings burst into full light again around him. There were seven of them all told, varying in size from the one who had first appeared down to two small ones that came no higher than mid chest. The small ones seemed more active than the bigger ones, prancing around him with every evidence of eagerness, and he thought they might be children. One of them reached for his hand just as a human child might and he let it be taken, feeling again the queer vibration. Wishing he could let the others know what he intended, he allowed the aliens to lead him away. He hoped he wasn't making the biggest mistake of his life.

*** *** ***

When Blake awoke, he found Avon bending over Orac conferring with the computer in low tones. Someone had removed the electrodes from his head and chest, and he felt refreshed, though not quite ready to get up again. For awhile he lay passively, doing a mental check of his injuries, and he found that while he was still tired, he was more alert than he had expected, and that his wounds were not quite as tender as before. If he didn't move at all, he could convince himself that he had suffered no injury.

That drew his attention back to Avon, who must have dismissed Soolin when he came in. Avon's face was intent as he and Orac speculated over some theory involving a teleport malfunction, and Blake was content to watch him. He had dreamed again, this time of the death of the wista and the realization that Lamak, the headman of their tribe of Greens, had died saving his life. He could recall Avon telling him to grieve for Lamak but to honor him for what he had done, and then holding Blake as he wept for the loss of the little native. It was almost impossible to imagine the man who had shot him so sympathetic, but he had seen vulnerability on Avon's face when, driven to desperation, Avon had admitted that he was having trouble dealing with what he considered two realities. Now Avon's eyes were narrowed in concentration, and Blake half expected Avon to shut him out again, retreating into himself.

Suddenly Avon's eyes lifted to meet Blake's, and though he went wary as he realized Blake was awake, he didn't shut himself away. Holding Blake's eyes, he said, "I wanted you to know that I'm...sorry about what happened on Gauda Prime."

"So am I," Blake replied. "I know that I could have been more precise in explaining what I was about, but I was so used to you knowing what I thought before I thought it that I expected you to understand I meant no harm. It was foolish of me."

"A part of me did know," Avon returned. "But it was much the same as what happened earlier today. What I expected was so different from what seemed to be happening that the two would not reconcile. I had learned to expect betrayal, even when the source seemed impossible."

He dropped his eyes and Blake remembered Anna Grant. If she could betray him, then Blake could betray him. Nothing could be taken on trust. But Avon was here now, actually finding the words to apologize.

He went on carefully, "That does not mean we have a solution for all our problems, Blake. I would prefer to leave the others with you and find the bolthole I've long wanted."

"But you won't," Blake returned with more confidence than he really felt.

"Not immediately, no. There is a problem to be solved and I have never liked an unsolved problem."

Blake hid a smile. So now Avon meant to use the mystery of their unexplained memories as his excuse to stay. Never mind that he might want to stay; he would never admit it, though the Avon at the Top of the World would eventually have done so. This Avon had gone so far beyond that that it was impossible to judge which way he would turn. Blake doubted he knew himself. He wasn't quite able to shield himself any more, and whether or not his automatic barricades would ever spring into place again, Avon meant to hold them in place voluntarily. That was why he had never come to see Blake and that was why he was holding his distance now.

"Have you learned anything more?" Blake asked, unwilling to push Avon too far. He'd been given a reprieve, not just by his survival but by the unlikely memories, and he might have time to mend his fences with Avon if he went about it carefully.

"You do 'remember' that we were stranded at the Top of the World when we attempted to teleport down to Sarken?"

Blake frowned, then nodded. "Yes, but I also remember that the others said we were gone 4 hours and that afterwards it seemed as if we had been gone only moments."

"The fact that we were gone at all adds some validity to the memories. If the others missed us for 4 hours, it is possible that we fell into Federation hands then and were programmed."

"I don't think we were so thoroughly programmed in a mere 4 hours. I can see no purpose in such programming in any case. Why program us for friendship? Surely that would be the last thing the Federation would want between us. More likely they would have tried to drive a wedge between us."

"I agree, and so does Orac, which incidentally says we have not been programmed, at least not in any way it can identify. It suggests that there has been some attempt at memory suppression which is now breaking down."

Blake sat up carefully, propping a pillow behind his back, gratified when Avon helped him adjust it, though Avon's face didn't change. "Now that is interesting, Avon. It sounds to me that something happened to us, maybe the things we remembered, and someone chose to suppress those memories. But whatever it is that makes us dream here broke down those barriers and released the memories in dreams. We haven't remembered all of it yet, because if we did, we might learn why we forgot it, but we're getting there. Every night I see a bit more."

"Orac compared your dream with incidents I recorded and there is a perfect match, allowing from the different viewpoints. It's likely programming would be similar in generalities and some major instances but that the correlation for unimportant details would be weaker."

"That makes a lot of sense. I wish I could remember returning to the Liberator, but all I remember is that we feared trouble with the teleport after you'd modified it to find me on Zil's planet." He tried to recall the incident but many of the details had faded.

"Vila, in his infinite 'wisdom' says that you and I behaved strangely after that incident. He was just here offering his advice, such as it is." Avon glared at Orac as if the whole incident was the computer's fault. "Vila's latest theory, which I do not necessarily believe, is that both of us remembered the Top of the World subconsciously, and that the present reality was so divergent from what we had come to expect that we grew steadily more resentful of each other."

"That's why you said you wanted rid of me at Star One," Blake burst out.

"According to Vila."

It made as much sense as any other theory, but Blake knew better than to push it. Maybe it had helped to create the final misunderstanding on Gauda Prime, if each of them remembered deep inside that there had once been something more. Each incident that contradicted what had grown up between them must have seemed a further betrayal.

"I'd accept it as a working hypothesis, Avon. What else does Orac have to say?"

"I am quite capable of speaking for myself," snapped Orac. "Memory suppression takes many forms and can be done by the human subconscious mind. In this case, an external influence seems most likely. Fascinating. The more I research the incident, the more intriguing it becomes. Not only were your memories removed, but your physical appearance was altered. When you returned to Liberator your clothing was not worn, your hair was short, you were not tanned; in short, you looked exactly as you looked when you had gone."

Avon tensed at that. "Ergo, we were never gone."

"You were gone. At the time, Cally ran medical checks on the two of you to determine if any harm had come to you. None had, or further, more extensive tests would have been carried out. But there were minute differences in your body chemistries. They were within nominal limits, so they were ignored. It might be possible to examine the data from that time and find a correlation to your experiences."

"What you're saying is that whatever took our memories has a great deal of power," Blake put in, absently rubbing his abdomen.

"And considerable cheek. Pawns, Blake. We were pawns in some larger game."

"Game?" Blake echoed. "That sounds familiar."

Avon's eyes narrowed. "The Masters," he exclaimed. "You remember, Blake. The Greens feared them, refused to discuss them. Even Dannal would not be budged about them, though the general consensus among the Greens was that the Masters had brought us."

"The Masters bring and the Masters take away," Blake mused, frowning. "We're still forgetting something, Avon. Whatever it is might be the basis of the entire blockage."

"Blake is correct," Orac agreed. "At this point, I recommend hypnosis, to break past the final barricade."

"There's no guarantee that will work," Blake disagreed. "It never did when I tried to regain my memories after the Federation programmed me. There are still things that never came back, though a few of them appear in dreams since we came here." He closed his eyes a moment, remembering a close friend who had died when Travis ambushed them. Jord had been like a brother, and for years, Blake had completely forgotten him, just as he had forgotten his experiences at the Top of the World. No one should have to face such tampering with his mind, and Blake resolved once again to bring about the downfall of the Federation, and replace it with a government that would feel no need to wipe the minds of its citizens.

Avon eyed him consideringly. "Do I see the rebirth of devotion to your Cause, Blake?" he asked warily.

"I don't know about you, Avon, but I resent my mind being tampered with. Maybe the Federation didn't do this to us--the scope of it seems a bit beyond their abilities. But the Federation wouldn't hesitate to try it, given half a chance." He sighed. "Don't worry, I don't intend to rush out and start the fight yet. I think I've learned a few lessons."

"I should like to believe that."

"You might try to restrain me from over-enthusiasm," Blake ventured tentatively.

"Someone must, but I have not yet decided whether or not it will be I." Avon turned back to Orac. "You plan hypnosis? When?"

"Tomorrow. You must be the subject since Blake's physical weakness makes him less than ideal. I will require the others to monitor the experience."

Avon drew back, evidently reluctant to experience it. Blake would not have enjoyed it either, and it would be even harder for Avon to surrender control to Orac. But it was the only way to uncover what had happened, and Blake saw resolution harden his face. "I should prefer to dispense with the monitors," he argued.

Orac didn't bother to argue back. It merely sat there blinking away and Avon turned away in disgust. "I do not like this, Blake."

"I think you like the idea of someone tampering with your mind even less."

"That goes without saying." Avon frowned, glanced at his chronometer. "I wonder where the others are."

Blake realized that Avon was uncomfortable with him. He didn't want the others here, he was just talking at random, something completely unlike him. This whole experience had been traumatic for him, so much he had almost lost his mind over it. He was still fragile and Blake, who would have liked Avon to sit and talk with him, catching up on their experiences since Star One, knew enough of Avon's experiences not to remind him of those times. "They'll be along," he said with a calm he didn't really feel. "I wonder how the Greens are doing without us."

"Well now, Blake, your last concern there was that your leadership would take away their right of self determination."

"True, Avon. But I'm still curious. I'd like to know how Dannal is managing as chief."

Avon shuddered elaborately. "I can just imagine. He had all of Tarrant's worst qualities, come to think of it. Reckless and foolhardy with never a thought of danger. I would like to believe he has learned to plan ahead, but it seems inconceivable to me."

It did to Blake too, but the little Green had been so proud of his badge of office and so determined to do well that he just might have made it. "He might have learned restraint from you."

"He showed little enough sign of doing so while we were there."

"Responsibility can work wonders, Avon."

"Ah yes, I often noticed your heroic restraint," Avon retorted, but there was a companionable note to his voice, similar to his tones at the Top of the World."

"I tried," Blake replied, hoping it would prolong the argument.

"You mean you were very trying," Avon retaliated, a gleam in his eyes. Suddenly he looked much younger. "I often remarked on it not only to Dannal, but to Vila and Cally and anyone who would listen."

Unfortunately the unguarded recollection of Cally must have hurt Avon making him withdraw again, his eyes narrowing. "If there are to be further tests tomorrow, I will leave you to rest now," he said and started for the door.

Blake wanted to call him back, to let him know somehow that he understood, but it seemed best to take this slowly. There had been some progress but to push it would inevitably lead to withdrawal, so he nodded agreeably. "I'll rest. It seems I was too ambitious and my body is shouting at me to sleep."

It was an unfortunate remark, reminding Avon of the shooting and he stiffened still further. "Orac," he barked in the tones of someone who is concerned but does not want to show it, "What is your present recommendation for Blake?"

"Sleep," Orac said briefly. "Something you should have been able to determine without my intervention. Now if you will allow me to go about my work, I will complete the tasks assigned to me by you and the others and return to my own work."

"The others?" Avon asked, returning to the center of the room, eyes narrowing. "Anything you haven't told me, Orac?"

"You did not ask."

"I am asking now." Those four words were completely ominous as if Avon suspected a plot against himself.

"Tarrant and Soolin requested me to discover whether the dreams and sense of presence here at the base was the actual cause of the Federation's departure from this world, rather than the Andromedan War and the general pullback from the outer worlds."

Avon did not relax--it was not his way--but thoughts of betrayal seemed to ebb again. "And your conclusions?" he asked narrowly.

"None as yet. My time has been involved in sifting through your memories and Blake's."

"Then put your efforts to the possibility of a local threat. Where are Tarrant and Soolin?"

"Soolin and Vila are in the control center," Orac replied after some abstracted blinking. "Tarrant has gone to the surface, so his exact location is impossible to pinpoint."

Avon's frowned. It need mean nothing except that Tarrant was exploring, but Avon was suspicious. "Contact him as soon as he returns and tell him to report to me."

"I am not a communications relay."

"You. will. do. as. I. say."

Orac was silent a moment, then it hissed, "Yes, Master," in a voice totally different from any Blake had heard it use before. Avon's face darkened, but instead of replying, he picked up the computer and stalked from the room without looking back.

Blake sighed. There was evidently a long way to go. Remembering what had been was not enough to make peace for either man. Avon would react to the fact that his memory of something good had been suppressed and could be again and would use that as a reason to hold off from any deeper relationship. Blake knew about that kind of thing; he suspected he had done much the same with Avon on Liberator. The Cause had become such an obsession with him because he knew he had lost a great deal--so many memories, so many friends--and, fearing he could lose again, he had held people at bay, devoting all his energy to an overthrow of the Federation. It reminded him of Jenna, who would have been willing to be much closer to him, and the way he had held her off, accepting her friendship but ignoring her love. He had done much the same with Avon, for although he had felt drawn to Avon from the beginning, he had never put the effort into the potentially difficult relationship that it deserved, choosing instead to wage what almost amounted to a war on Avon's own level. It might have taken no more than a willingness to be the first to unbend; in fact he could recall several instances where Avon had actually seemed disappointed in Blake's reaction and had pushed him all the harder, perhaps hoping for better. It would have taken remarkably few such instances for Avon to have stopped trying, Though he might have still responded to such a gambit as late as at the tents of Goth--Blake remembered Avon saying, "I got Travis for you,"--Blake had never let himself draw any closer to Avon either. Jenna had resented Avon, recognizing the chemistry that could exist between the two of them, but after any tentative attempts to develop a relationship were rebuffed, Avon was not likely to try again. Yet he had been remarkably persistent in saving Blake's life, often at risk to himself. Perhaps that was why he had been so determined to insist such things put Blake in his debt or that it was simply a moment of instinct. Yet he was willing to respond to what little Blake was willing to give, though he often cloaked his responses in sarcasm. But he had searched for Blake after Star One, something Blake had never dared believe would happen. Avon might be complex and sometimes impossible, but he had devoted more effort to Blake than Blake would ever have expected, and it warmed the cold places inside. All this time, his own stubborn fear of losing everything again might have kept at bay a friendship well worth having.

He tried to insist that his Cause must come first, but he'd been through so much in the past years that while he still believed and was beginning to burn with renewed fervor, his hidden core longed for something more. He could not put aside his Cause, not even for Avon, but he could temper it. He had learned on the Top of the World that he didn't stop existing without it, and Avon had filled the void quite nicely. He wanted that Avon back, but to get him, he would have to be that Blake, and he would have to take the first risks himself.

Three large holes in his middle made him wary because a part of him had not yet forgiven Avon for the shooting, and that part was still determined to make Avon pay, but the more time that passed and the more he saw of Avon, the more eager he was to put that past behind him. Seeing Avon teetering at the edge of insanity over the conflicting memories had removed the vast bulk of Blake's rage and resentment and he had found himself wanting to do nothing less than draw Avon into his arms and comfort him as Avon would have allowed among the Greens.

That spun a fragment of memory into being and he saw himself pulling Avon to him and saying, "You'll never permit this back home, and I won't leave without it. Avon, if you remember anything remember that I care. Remember that we can accomplish anything together. Remember that I need you beside me." The rest of the memory skittered away into fragments, but its meaning was clear enough. He and Avon had known that they would forget. Whatever had happened to them there had been deleted from their minds and they had faced it. Avon had said in return, "And if I remember none of that, Blake?"

"Then, as you said, it's possible, Avon. It's always possible."

Blake dropped his head into his hands. "Oh, god," he groaned. It had been so possible that at the first chance he had, he had abandoned Avon without looking back, and the next time he and Avon met, they had grown so far apart that he had driven Avon to shoot him, and Avon in his desperation had been unable to stop himself.  _So much for our possibilities, Avon_ , Blake thought bitterly.  _We killed our chances, didn't we?_

Then he shook his head. Avon was still here, Avon was agonizing over the double set of memories, was even reluctantly willing to allow hypnosis to put it straight. He fell easily into the comfortable banter from the Top of the World, only dropping it when forcibly reminded how much had been lost, how much had changed. Maybe it wasn't too late.

Blake knew he was good with people. He always had been, and it made him a good leader. Some said he was manipulative, but others claimed he had a straightforward ability to make others see his point and choose to follow him. Blake worked well with a crowd, even a small group. But in spite of the memories of the old days that had been triggered here, of Jord and other people that had been lost in the miasma of Federation programming, he suspected he was never so competent when dealing with the individual. He had a competitive edge and the conviction that his way was right that often put people off, or that lowered his opinion of someone who lacked the commitment. Put him in front of a group to be convinced of the rightness of his beliefs and he could connect with them easily. Put him with a potential friend and he would fall back on the Cause.

He was good with people. He was less able to relate one on one. The Top of the World showed him one thing, how much he had missed such human interaction and how much he wanted it again, with Avon. Perhaps with the others as well, Vila, whom he had always underestimated, for instance. The Vila he had met here, who had lobbied in Avon's behalf, was a different man than the sniveling coward who had never really been Vila, but who had fit conveniently into a mold in Blake's mind. It was easier to accept a stereotype Vila than to make the effort to see what he was really like. Blake remembered all the times he had used Vila for his skills and never given a thought to the person underneath. Vila had irritated him with his cringing and his attempts to get out of work, and Blake had often taken it as a personal affront to his Cause, but there was more to Vila than that and Blake was curious.

Tarrant and Soolin too, for they were here and part of Avon's team, and in spite of Avon's avowed plan to turn them over to Blake and depart, he doubted it would be so easy to separate the group. They all acted as if they despised each other, but Soolin and Tarrant had both defended Avon to him, Tarrant the more vociferously, it was true, but Soolin's defenses were not far behind. Tarrant blamed himself for Gauda Prime, which was rather arrogant of him, since the blame could be fairly apportioned between a number of people. But Vila had been right in saying that blaming people for what was over and done was a futile pursuit. Better to put it behind them and make new memories, more positive ones.

That led him back to Avon, as most things did. Blake doubted he could give up his Cause any more than Avon could give up computers, but Blake did not have the one voice that led to truth. He had been forced to push so hard on Liberator because the others had not been willing to give time to his Cause, and left to their own devices, might have ignored it entirely. Of late, Avon had not been ignoring it. Recent reports had startled Blake. As he had become more cynical, less willing to trust, Avon had taken it upon himself to try to defeat the Federation. Blake doubted he had any belief in the quest for Freedom, but that did not mean he would be unwilling to work alongside Blake to achieve it. Perhaps his rational arguments would benefit not only Blake but the Cause as a whole.

Blake shook his head. He was falling back into the old traps already. He had a chance to make things right and only if he and Avon could come to terms would it ever work. He wanted it back. He wanted it back so badly that it hurt more than his wounds did. But he wanted more for Avon and himself than they could have had stranded on a primitive world. He wanted that friendship here and now, in their own time and place, with the others around them. That unity would be a force to be reckoned with. Convincing Avon would be the first step, and he suspected Vila would help. If it worked, Vila would join in, but if it failed, he had a hunch that Vila would go with Avon. The others might complain about Avon and argue with him, but given a choice of him or Blake, Blake wouldn't see their dust. Yet the quiet companionship of the others, coming and sitting with him these past weeks, was something to be treasured. He was growing to like Tarrant, who had begun to leave his resentment behind, and who often sat and asked him questions by the hour. The boy was not above a little hero worship, and it did Blake's barren soul good. Soolin, in her quiet competence and her dry humor, reminded him a little of Jenna, though there were a great many differences between them. Soolin chose to avoid involvement, but unlike Avon, she simply did it, and didn't have to fight so hard to hold her distance. Yet, in spite of her intentions, she defended Avon to him, she supported Tarrant when he remembered Dayna, their lost companion, and she bolstered Vila, who sometimes appeared to be carrying the weight of worlds upon his unpracticed shoulders. Her matter of fact good sense often pulled him up short and made him value her the more, and he knew she would be an excellent companion in a fight or an ally to rely upon in a crisis.

Blake felt weariness begin to overtake him once more and this time he was ready for sleep. He had come a long way in a short time and he hoped he could keep all this in perspective when again confronted with Avon. It all came back to Avon. Blake had always considered himself the glue that bound them all together, but this group had a different center. He was the outsider here, not Tarrant and Soolin, and it was only Avon's bond with him, a fragile thing that could shatter at any moment, that held them all together. Putting the pieces back together would be difficult, but Blake knew now what he had to gain. He was determined not to lose it again.

*** *** ***

"Tarrant should have been back by now," Soolin remarked to Vila as they worked on the defense shielding Avon had set up. The system had an automatic alarm which would go off if any ship approached the system, but Avon preferred to have it checked at least once a day since the systems here had been left alone and untended for several years and were sometimes known to break down. Every day checks were run on this system, environmental, which included life support, and perimeter defenses, as well as the general power. So far, their work consisted of replacing the occasional burnt out circuit board from stores, and occasionally cobbling together a part when no replacement was available. It was not strenuous work, and in the absence of anything else to do but watch Blake get well, they welcomed the tasks, even Vila, who made a show of complaining about anything faintly resembling work. Avon had also put Orac to the task of preparing everything possible here to install a teleport system, once they got another ship. Vila grinned a little as they thought of that. For all Avon's avowed intention of turning them over to Blake and leaving as soon as possible, Avon was certainly making permanent plans for a future which included all of them.

At least Avon and Blake were talking again, though it had needed a near crisis to put them on better terms. Vila had not been present when Avon and Blake had met after Avon had all but fled the control center, but he had seen Avon when he had asked about the trip to Sarken, and there was enough of his doubt about the memories left to make him seem unnaturally vulnerable to Vila, who was not used to it. It certainly made sense that Avon and Blake had grown increasingly hostile after their memories of that primitive planet had been taken away because the subconscious kept making comparisons and finding the present reality wanting. But now they had another chance. Vila knew Avon well enough to fear it wouldn't be a good chance, but Avon wanted it to work now, though he wasn't admitting it. If Avon hadn't wanted Blake back, he would have been long gone.

"He'll show up," Vila replied. "There's nothing up there to hurt him."

"Not much there isn't. As near as I can tell, he's been gone for 6 hours. You'd think he'd have come back to eat if nothing else. Besides, Orac did report those power surges or whatever they were."

"Nasty aliens," Vila concurred. "We'd better tell Avon."

"No, we should go after him ourselves."

"Are you sure that's wise?" Vila asked automatically. He wouldn't have volunteered to do any such thing back on Scorpio.

"I think it might be necessary," she countered.

"But if they've got Tarrant, what's to stop them taking us too? Mind you, we can't leave him in their hands, but if we go hurrying out there without thinking about it, the same thing might happen to us."

She narrowed her eyes, as if seeing past the complaining note in Vila's voice. "That's true. It won't be much of a rescue if we wind up in the same trap. Of course he may have done nothing more deadly than sprain his ankle, in which case, the sooner we fetch him in the better."

"Better go armed then."

"I always go armed. I'm going to tell Avon what's happening. If he knows Tarrant went to the surface, he's probably annoyed with him already."

"When isn't he?"

Vila accompanied her to find Avon, running him to ground in Blake's room. Interesting. Blake was evidently newly awake and was looking fitter than usual, sitting on the edge of his bed watching Avon, who was running a program with Orac. "H'lo, Avon," he greeted. "H'lo Blake."

"What are you doing here?" Avon asked as if he had found a bug in his bed.

"We're going looking for Tarrant," Soolin explained. "He's been gone over 6 hours and he might be hurt."

Avon straightened up and stared at her. "He had no reason to go to the surface." The implication was that he had got himself into trouble and had better get himself out of it. "Besides, it will be dark soon. I do not wish this base accessible after dark."

"Then we'll make a quick search and come in before dark," Soolin replied practically. "Without portable scanners, we probably couldn't locate him in the dark anyway unless we heard him shouting."

"What do you think has happened to him?" Blake asked.

"Probably fell over his own feet and broke his leg," Vila offered.

"Or Orac's proposed aliens might have taken him," Soolin went on, though she did not look as if she found this idea very likely.

Avon's eyes narrowed. "Now that is an interesting theory. Orac has found traces of whatever it is on the base itself, but nothing happens until one of us leaves it?"

"I find that suspicious," Vila piped up.

"You find your morning alarm suspicious. Orac," Avon went on, turning abruptly. "Could the supposed entity cause physical harm to Tarrant?"

"Or any of us?" Vila asked, distinctly uneasy at the thought.

"It is possible. It is also possible that such beings might affect a human's brain."

"Explain," Avon ground out.

"If these creatures have affected your dreams, they have already done so to an extent. They were able to access and trigger buried memories. They might have the ability to influence the subconscious mind. If physical harm is beyond them, and there is no evidence of that, it is possible for them to lure someone away or convince him the situation is not as it appears, possibly initiating rash behavior."

"How could you tell the difference, when it's Tarrant?" Vila demanded, grinning faintly.

"More to the point, how can we prevent a similar occurrence in future?" Avon demanded. "If a search for Tarrant is initiated, what would prevent the searchers from disappearing in the same fashion. Can you devise an apparatus to shield out whatever energy the creatures have access to."

Orac pondered, then replied in the affirmative. "Fascinating. Such is well within my capabilities. Judging by the energy levels registered and their wavelengths, it should be possible to create a device which would filter that out. I shall require the following equipment." He went off into a list of things that Vila didn't entirely understand, but Avon made note of them, nodding once or twice, and Blake's face held comprehension too.

"I can help you with it, Avon," he volunteered when Orac had finished its list of materials.

"We will see what we can find here in supplies." He eyed Blake measuringly. "I recommend we construct several devices, and make them in such a fashion that they can be worn while sleeping. If the dreams do not recur, we will know that we have located the source of the problem."

"It's not been entirely a problem, Avon," Blake disagreed with him. "Thanks to the dreams, we've remembered something worthwhile."

"For what it is worth," Avon replied warily, but the words were not as harsh as they might have been.

"It's worth a great deal--to me," insisted Blake, faint surprise showed on Avon's face as if he had not expected Blake to admit it. He probably didn't, not after Gauda Prime.

"If you say so," he replied with no evidence of enthusiasm, adding, "In any case, I resent being manipulated, by these creatures or any other."

"If you mean whoever made us forget, Avon, I resent it too."

Avon smiled with slightly cynical amusement. "Well now, Blake, what guarantees do you have that I did not include you in the list of manipulators?"

"Only my own boundless optimism," Blake returned with a broad grin. Soolin smothered a chuckle and Vila smiled in spite of himself at the disgruntled look on his face.

"I have noted little optimism lately," Avon said, then looked as if he wished he could pull the words back for fear of reminding himself--and Blake--of Gauda Prime.

"I'm just hitting my stride," Blake replied. "Watch me when I'm back on my feet."

"And to what do we owe this unlikely enthusiasm, Blake?" Avon demanded suspiciously as he checked several cupboards in the medical unit for any of Orac's requirements.

Blake glanced round at the others before turning to Avon, open delight in his features. "Together we can move mountains, Avon," he said.

"I am not a candidate for recruitment to your Cause, Blake."

"No, though you did what you could in this last year to fight my battles for me."

"The Federation inconvenienced me. Servalan knows me too well."

"Exactly why we should unite again, Avon. That and another reason."

"I am certain I shall not like this one any better than your previous attempts at manipulation." But Avon's face held no resentment. He seemed to be enjoying himself, and Vila knew he had always enjoyed such arguments on the Liberator, until Blake had become so obsessed with the Cause that he could see nothing past it, not even Avon.

"I hope you will like this one. Because we work better as a team than we do apart."

Avon hesitated. He could hardly deny it for he and Blake had nearly fallen apart after their separation. Vila wondered how Avon would have stood up after shooting Anna Grant if he had had Blake to fall back upon. Blake would never have stood for Avon's proposed revenge on Shrinker but might have gone along with it up to a point. If he had been there afterwards, it might have made a lot of difference. If Blake had been there all along, they wouldn't have gone to Terminal and Cally would still be alive. Vila sighed inaudibly. If he could change anything at all in the past 4 years, he would change Cally's death.

"Subjective, but possible, Blake," Avon conceded at length. "However, I do not intend to accept anything like your behavior before we went to Star One."

"I hope not. If you see me acting that way again, stop me. I can look back on that now and see how driven I was, and I don't like it. Deva used to get at me about it after we started to set up the GP base, and he agreed with you. I wonder if you mightn't have got through to me if we weren't reacting to our subconscious memories of the Greens and the time we spent with them."

"Oh, it was more than that, Blake. You have such a tendency toward fanaticism that I should have my work cut out for me. But perhaps it was a portion of the problem. Gan's death was...easy on no one."

"It's always hard to lose someone you're responsible for, Avon."

Avon set down several small devices he had scavenged from a drawer and eyed Blake suspiciously. Dayna's death was fresh in their memories, and Vila was sure that Avon never forgot Cally.

"Perhaps it can lead to...fanaticism," he conceded. Then, eyeing Vila and Soolin who were listening avidly, he shook his head and headed for the door. "I will collect the rest of the equipment. Blake, you and Orac start to work on the design. You two," he said to Vila and Soolin, "May go as far as the viewport level and call for Tarrant. I do not want either of you going outside unless you actually see or hear him."

"But he could be lying just out of range with a broken leg," Vila objected. Tarrant might be a great bully and not his favorite person, but he had not been so bad of late, and Vila had often surprised himself by expressing concern for the great lout when he got into trouble.

"Then it is his own fault for taking such an ill-advised action," Avon replied relentlessly as he went out.

"Come on, Vila," Soolin urged, pulling out her gun to check its setting. "We may as well do what we can."

"Avon is trying to protect you," Blake spoke up.

Soolin turned and stared at him. "I know. I hope Tarrant isn't in trouble, but I can see his point. Until we know more, risking any more of us is futile. Avon has a way of stating the truth in the most unpleasant way possible."

Blake burst out laughing. "So I've noticed. But he's made so much progress today I can hardly believe it."

"Avon doesn't like what he can't explain," Vila reminded him. "Even if we don't know how you were made to forget about that place you were stranded, it helps that Orac accepts its reality. He always wanted you back, Blake, even when he didn't know it himself." He grinned widely at the sudden light in Blake's eyes and grabbed Soolin's hand.

"Come on, let's got see if the boy wonder is within hailing distance."

They rode the lift up to the surface where Soolin insisted on climbing a nearby hill and scanning the surrounding area while Vila watched her uneasily, glancing over his shoulder as he stood at the bottom of the hill, his gun in hand. The only sounds were the wind and the rustle of dry scrub, but the air felt full of strange and alien presences, and Vila didn't like it. "Tarrant!" he bellowed a few times, but only the wind answered him.

*** *** ***

Tarrant had not meant to disappear, but when he followed the aliens, they took him further and further from the base, finally reaching a cave some five kilometers from his starting point. Its opening was rough and uninspiring and looked like nothing so much as the lair of a small animal; Tarrant had to enter on his hands and knees, while the aliens simply scrunched their glowing forms down into compact and bulky shapes and drifted ahead of him effortlessly, resuming their normal forms when the cave widened out after a few meters into a vast room.

Here all traces of a natural cavern vanished, for the place was lit with the glow of dozens of the natives, all going about their complex business in a pattern of dazzling light. When Tarrant scrambled up to confront them, sounds like a hundred wind chimes burst into being around him and the breathy tinkle of their voices went on him at great length. He knew some of them were asking questions, but he could not make enough sense of their language to grasp what they were saying. For all he knew they were telling him he must die for trespassing on their territory, but none of them made any threatening moves.

"I'm Del Tarrant," he said, gesturing to himself to reinforce his words. "I mean you no harm." Spreading his hands wide to show himself weaponless, he could only hope that among them such a gesture didn't mean something quite different. A long time ago, he had taken a brief Academy course on first contact, but since Space Command preferred to greet aliens while heavily armed and prepared to destroy them, the course had been short and extremely general, assuming it would be easier to make sense of the language. Tarrant couldn't even tell which of them was speaking.

Finally, one of them approached him, drifting just above the cave floor, and reached out two 'hands' to touch Tarrant on either side of the head. He made himself stand his ground but it took steady nerves not to bolt as the vibration effect of their touch seemed magnified. His ears rang and he was suddenly dizzy, but the being held him upright effortlessly.

*Come.* He wasn't certain if he actually felt the word inside his head or whether he translated it mentally. Whether the being was using language as he understood it was a moot point, but Tarrant realized he had no choice but to go with the being. "I understand," he said, trying to reinforce it mentally. Such things had never worked with Cally, but she couldn't receive from non-telepaths, and maybe these creatures could.

In a cluster of natives, he was borne across the vast cavern to a smaller tunnel, high enough for him to walk upright but with so little clearance that occasionally he was forced to duck his head to avoid projecting rocks. There was no evidence of light fixtures but the glow of the beings provided plenty of illumination and he could to see quite well.

He was finally ushered into a small chamber, possibly a sleeping room, if beings like this did anything so mundane as sleep. He saw only a smooth pallet in one corner and it was to this that he was steered. Suddenly a group of the creatures surrounded him and forced him down on the mat, holding him in place when he tired to struggle up. There were no further attempts at communication, but now there were 'hands' all over him, holding him in place, and the vibration effect was so intensified that his whole body trembled with it. Then, the one who had attempted to communicate with him touched him on the middle of the forehead and everything faded away. Helpless and terrified, he fought the overwhelming darkness, but he was unable to resist. Consciousness faded and he was lost.

*** *** ***

"...no trace of him," Soolin reported to Avon in the control center. "It's too dark to track him now and that dry dusty earth doesn't make for good tracking anyway. The wind swirls the dust around so much that footprints wouldn't last more than ten minutes. If he went thrashing through the brush, I might track him by the broken branches, but some of the storms this world gets do their fair share of that. The only thing I can suggest is to spread out in widening circles tomorrow at first light and see if we can find him." She shrugged deprecatingly. "Of course he may be back by then."

Avon nodded, accepting her report if not her suggestion. "He's a fool," he commented. "No one else goes out without my say so, is that clear?" He looked at Soolin expectantly, but didn't bother to turn and demand the same from Vila. Probably he believed Vila wouldn't take the risk anyway. Soolin wasn't so sure. Vila had not been eager to venture beyond the door to the underground base, but with Tarrant missing and some kind of beings running around the base, she didn't blame him.

"Are you implying that we won't bother to look for him, Avon?" she challenged.

That got Vila's attention and he opened his mouth, possibly to object to Tarrant's potential abandonment, though she had never understood why he would be protective of Tarrant.

"I am implying nothing," Avon replied. "I am stating that any attempt at rescue will be evaluated at the time. Since Tarrant may return of his own volition before then, it's pointless to plan for tomorrow."

"Has Orac picked up anything more about potential aliens?" she asked.

"Nothing so far. At present there is no trace of the energy detected earlier."

"They're not here now," Vila agreed. "They're probably out having their fun with Tarrant." He shivered slightly. "How's Blake?"

"Resting," Avon replied, his mouth tightening slightly. The question made him pause as if he wanted to go and check.

"Let's eat," Vila put in. "We can get some food and go eat in Blake's room."

"Why should we bother?"

"Because, Avon," Soolin said brusquely, "Blake isn't well enough to come here and we might as well eat together and compare notes." She was tired of Avon's attitude and even more tired of thinking of logical reasons to bring the two of them together. She wasn't quite sure why she bothered when uninvolvement had served her so well up till now. But she was drawn to Blake in spite of herself and since Blake had gone after Avon this morning, Avon was more human than he'd been in a long time. A little effort to maintain, or possibly improve, the status quo, wouldn't hurt her.

Vila gave her a knowing grin as he headed for the food processor.

Blake wasn't sleeping. When they came in, Vila carrying his food and Blake's on a tray, the rebel sat up with minimal effort and accepted a platter and a cup of coffee. "That looks good, Vila. Thanks."

"I'm not sure how much longer I can make the synthesizer work," Vila replied. "It's time to turn Avon loose upon it. I'm a natural genius, but of course he's the expert."

Avon smiled the kind of smile he did when conceding that he was better than anyone else and wasn't it good of Vila to notice. Choosing a chair not far from Blake, he set Orac aside and retrieved his plate from Soolin. She decided that group meals might be a good thing because Blake looked far more cheerful, and the eyes that rested on Avon for a moment while he wasn't looking held none of the resentment she had expected.

"Any word of Tarrant?" Blake asked.

"He wasn't near enough to hear us shouting for him," Soolin replied. "We can look for him tomorrow."

"Is he always given to this kind of reckless stunt?"

"Always," Avon replied in tones of long-suffering patience. Soolin turned away to hide a smile at the idea of Avon being patient.

"I'm surprised you put up with him so long," Blake remarked with a broad grin.

"He was a good pilot," Avon returned. "We had need of a pilot." He added hastily, "In any case, he's not only reckless, he's fairly lucky, or he would have been dead a long time ago."

"He put up with Avon for two years," Vila added slyly. "He's very lucky."

Avon took that well. Favoring Vila with a mock-ominous glare, he said, "See that you remember that, Vila."

Vila looked delighted. Soolin remembered Dayna telling her how Avon and Vila had always bantered back and forth, insulting each other, and that it had seemed remarkably good natured considering Avon's temperament. Since the death of Cally, there had been little of it. The two of them had discussed him a few times, wondering if there was any way to halt his descent into the darkness. They hadn't found one, but now the solution sat in borrowed pajamas, feet dangling, from tucking away a substantial meal. As Soolin ate, she watched Avon and Blake discuss the shield they were designing, which should effectively filter out all unnatural dreams. Blake was an engineer, she remembered, who seemed to know what he was talking about. No one could keep up with Avon when it involved computers, but what they intended to design was not entirely a computer project, and Blake held his own in the conversation. Avon listened to his suggestions and accepted them. He had always respected competence.

"When will it be ready?" Vila asked eagerly. "I don't like the idea of nasty aliens crawling about in my head whilst I sleep."

"They haven't hurt you, Vila," Soolin pointed out. Her dreams had been rather pleasant and they had not interfered with survival in any way.

"Yet," said Vila darkly, grimacing. "Besides, they might have done something to Tarrant. He should have been back by now."

"How will the device work?" Soolin asked hastily as Avon looked up, his eyes going cool and irritated as he remembered Tarrant.

"We'll attach it to a band that wraps around the head," Blake replied. "It will generate a field to shield out external energy sources. It will not stop us dreaming altogether, but it will remove any attempts at influence from outside ourselves."

"When will it be ready?" Vila asked. "Will we all have them?"

"I plan to test it myself," Avon replied. "Blake has not yet regained his full strength. Should the device prove effective, we will produce enough of them for all of us."

Vila hesitated. "Um, Avon..."

"Now what, Vila?"

"Well, you've had those nightmares. I don't think the aliens did them. I think they're...because..."

Avon turned a perfectly malevolent glare upon Vila, who gulped but plunged on. "Because you shot Blake. You have the good dreams too, the ones we've all been having, but I think you'd have the other ones even if we were somewhere else."

"Meaning?" Avon asked through clenched teeth.

"Meaning you might not be the best person to try it on." He took a deep breath. "I'll do it."

That startled Avon enough to get past his rage. "You'd take the risk? I'm astonished, Vila."

"It can't be that much risk, not if you were going to try it on yourself." He fell silent as if trying to decide whether that was a valid argument. Avon hadn't been terribly survival minded on their way here.

"It isn't even finished yet," Blake put in. "Frankly, I'd like to try it. Being a little weak doesn't stop me from dreaming, and I'd welcome a night of uninterrupted rest." He added slowly, "Of course I think I'd miss the latest installment from the Top of the World, but I'm willing to try it myself."

"I will try it," Avon replied finally as if there would be no further discussion and applied himself to his meal.

"What about base security?" Soolin asked, changing the subject. "Usually we make sure the base is secured at night. If Tarrant comes back after we do that, he'll have to spend the night outside."

"If he's well enough to make it back, a night outside won't kill him," Avon said unsympathetically. "I do not intend to endanger the rest of us simply on the off chance that Tarrant will return."

Soolin wondered if he were concerned about Tarrant at all. Yet on Gauda Prime, Avon had told Tarrant, "I'm glad you made it," and Tarrant had come back for Avon when he might have got away. Pursing her lips in some perplexity, she wondered why relationships with Avon were always so difficult. She shook her head.

*** *** ***

Avon and Blake spent the evening working on the shielding devices. Soolin alternated between assisting and keeping watch on the upper level in case Tarrant returned, and when she came down from her watch, she sent a protesting Vila up in her place. Joining Avon and Blake for a few minutes, she announced her determination to get some sleep before she relieved Vila.

Blake was pleased for the chance to work alone with Avon. He was enjoying himself, grateful to have rediscovered the companionship they had shared at the Top of the World, at least as long as neither of them stopped to consider it. Avon would become lost in the work and treat Blake as he had done among the Greens, but every now and then something would remind him and he would become distant again. Blake found it easy to react to the more relaxed Avon but the periodic tension reminded him unavoidably of Gauda Prime. He knew that until they really discussed the shooting, they couldn't leave it behind.

"Avon?"

The computer tech tensed but he looked up without setting aside his tools. "What is it, Blake?" he asked with deliberate impatience. "We are working to schedule."

"One more night of dreams is hardly likely to endanger us any more than the past few weeks have."

"You forget that Tarrant is missing. Knowing him, he has managed to enhance our danger. If he went out looking for trouble..."

"More likely he wandered further than he thought or turned his ankle."

"Optimism hardly suits you, Blake. Surely you've learned by now that expecting the best is a mistake."

Blake had learned that; he had felt his cynicism growing in the years since he left the Liberator. Losing Jenna had nearly completed the process and Gauda Prime should have capped it, but this past day with Avon had eroded his resentment and made it impossible to embrace cynicism completely. "Sometimes the best happens after all, Avon. If you'd asked me even a few days ago if we could be working like this now, I would have laughed in your face."

"This proves nothing, Blake." Avon's eyes never left the device on the table, but the laser probe in his hand had gone completely still. "Survival makes strange bedfellows."

"Oh, come, Avon, you can do better than that. You didn't come to Gauda Prime with the intention of shooting me any more than I wanted you there so I could mislead you into doing it. We both let suspicion and mistrust get out of hand. I wonder how it would have been different if we'd remembered life among the Greens."

"Might have beens are even more ludicrous than optimism, Blake. A complete waste of time."

"What about regrets, Avon?"

"I told Cally once that regret was part of being alive but that she should make it a small part."

Blake wondered what had led up to such an improbable discussion. "I'm not saying we should wallow in it, Avon. I just want you to know I'm sorry for Gauda Prime. I realize that while everything had changed for me, I expected you to have remained untouched by the years and to have understood me without hints or explanations. Maybe it was a way of proving that it would be all right."

"If you expected proof of that, you were waiting for the wrong man."

"Was I? I've found the right man now and he's working with me at this minute."

Avon's face twisted slightly but whether in scorn or regret it was not possible to say. "You're a fool, Blake," Avon returned in a voice that must have been level with an effort. "I  _shot_  you. If you'd shot me, I'd have never been so tolerant."

"But I'm not you, Avon. Call me a fool if you will, but I won't hold something against you that was as much my fault as it was yours. Remembering the Top of the World only makes me realize how much someone has to answer for." When the muscles bunched in Avon's jaw and his shoulders tensed, Blake added quickly, "I don't mean you, Avon. I mean whoever let us become friends and then erased it. Whoever manipulated us there is as much responsible for Gauda Prime as the rest of us are. I tested Tarrant and he triggered it all, but what else could he have believed? And what else could you believe after everything you'd been through, but that one more person had betrayed you?"

"That  _you_  had betrayed me," said Avon involuntarily.

"Yes. At least I'd like to hope that I would matter to you enough for that."

"Enough to shoot you?" Avon asked skeptically. "If you can forgive me for that, you are an idiot, Blake. What guarantees do you have that I won't do it again?"

"None if I seem to betray you again. But I  _won't_ , Avon. You're too important to me for that. I know that now. As I lay here getting well, I realized that it was because it was you who shot me that I minded so much. Oh, I'm not stupid enough not to resent being shot, but being shot by  _you_  hurt the most. There was nothing else left for you to do, and I'm sorry I drove you to it. But I want to put it behind us both and go on from there. I want to learn why we forgot the Top of the World--I remember now that we knew we would forget. Someone deliberately wiped those memories and we knew it was going to happen, but there was nothing we could do about it."

Avon leaned forward almost eagerly. "You remember that much?"

"I recall telling you to remember how much I cared, to remember how much the two of us could accomplish together. And you asked, "And if I remember none of that?" and I said, 'At least it's possible.'"

"So possible that at our first meeting I shot you?" Avon looked like he wanted to bolt, but he didn't. He stood there, the laser probe dangling from slack fingers, his face shadowed, his eyes full of pain. "You have impossible expectations, Blake."

"Do I? Don't you think I wanted to hate you for shooting me? I'm not a tolerant man--I never have been. I have expectations too, even if you might call them foolish. But I find I can't hate you. Perhaps part of it is these unexpected memories. I know you better than I thought I did, and you know me. I value what we once had, and I think you do too. I don't want to let something that was almost beyond our control take away a memory that important." Though he was tired, he stood up and walked carefully around the table to drop his hands on Avon's shoulders. They went rigid, but Avon didn't pull away. "I don't expect it to be easy, Avon, but I want to recapture what we shared on the Top of the World."

"Perhaps we have both changed too much for that, Blake. We were different men then."

"I don't know about you, Avon, but I refuse to blame circumstances for my inability to deal with you. I have more control than that. Life kicked us in the face, but I won't sit back and say, 'poor me.' I'll fight back. I think you can fight back too. Otherwise you let the Federation win."

"I should have known this would degenerate into a recruitment pitch. Your Cause..." Avon tried to pull away.

"Damn my cause!" Blake burst out furiously, digging his fingers into Avon's shoulders and shaking him lightly. "I didn't mean that and you know it. Don't use my Cause to back away. I mentioned the Federation because they're responsible for a lot of the bad things that happened to us. I only meant I won't allow external forces to dictate how I react to you. It's not been a good few years, Avon, and from what the others have hinted, it's been as bad if not worse for you. All I'm saying is that any conflict between us that arose out of that should be set aside."

"Indeed? And the fact of your continued absence, Blake? Do I blame the Federation for that too? We searched for you for two years.  _I_  searched for you. Yet there you were on Gauda Prime playing your damned rebel games with never a thought for me." Immediately his face blanked as if he longed to take back his heated words, but Blake heard the hurt and accusation in them all the same. No wonder Avon had been so willing to believe him traitor. His absence needed an explanation and needed it quickly or Avon would see it as another betrayal.

"I was wrong, Avon," he said softly. "When we last met, you seemed to hate me. I tried to work past that when I realized how badly I had bungled the mission to Star One, when I told you I'd always trusted you, but even now I'm not sure how you reacted to that. Probably you were trying not to laugh in my face. But I'd promised you Liberator, Avon, and I thought the most certain way to make it yours was to stay away. That doesn't mean I didn't  _want_  to come back--I wanted it with every fiber of my being."

"But the Cause called and you answered," Avon put in, a look of deliberate scorn upon his face.

"That was a part of it, yes. I can't deny it. But it was a little more than that. I almost destroyed Star One, Avon. I almost destroyed it for all the wrong reasons, taking millions of people along with it. I was certain that no man could stand against the temptation of Star One--I knew you didn't want it destroyed, but I told myself it was because you wanted the power, the chance at wealth. I had to believe that I had a nobler cause than that, but in reality I only wanted validation of what I believed. I wanted to be vindicated. Not much of a reason to kill millions, is it? When I realized what I had almost done, it shook me so badly I knew I had to get off by myself and come to terms with that part of me. It wasn't easy and I'm not sure even now that I've managed it. It destroyed what was left of my innocence and made me a lot less likely to take people at face value. That was why I had to test Tarrant, even though I knew he'd been with you. If I'd met you first, it might have gone differently."

"Might it?" Avon asked doubtfully. "I'm not convinced of that, Blake. In any case, you could have contacted us and told us you needed time to think. We might have respected that. It took us long enough to realize that you didn't want to be found."

"It wasn't that I didn't want to be found, Avon, but that I didn't dare to be found. On Liberator it was all too easy. The rest of you didn't believe in the cause, not really, though you often backed me. When I was there, I could believe myself right far too easily. I could hold up the virtue of my motives and compare them to yours and Vila's and believe I was right. Away from the ship--and you--I had to stop and think. I needed that time, Avon, though I never stopped missing you."

"Sentiment is weakness, Blake."

"I've heard that before. I don't think it's entirely true, and I don't think missing a friend leads to an excess of sentiment. I'm sorry I didn't contact you again, Avon. Perhaps it was selfish of me, not realizing how it might affect you, but you'll have to admit that your fervent desire to be rid of me gave me reason to suspect I wouldn't be missed."

"And here you claim to be the perceptive one," Avon replied a little more softly. "Of course I wanted rid of you, Blake. Part of that was because you had the power to get to me and I didn't want to need anyone or to allow anyone as close to me as you might one day become--and as you had already been. I hate to admit it, but I think Vila may well be right, that our subconscious reactions to a different relationship than we had learned to expect added to our troubles. Though neither of us realized what was happening, we both felt a sense of betrayal, but there was nothing concrete to attack." He pulled back from Blake abruptly though he didn't put much distance between them.

"So adding that to the very real feeling of betrayal you felt when I left and didn't come back, there's another motive for the shooting," Blake realized. "It might also be why I didn't give you the straight answer that you needed, a further test of those suppressed memories. On the Top of the World, you would have known what I meant without hesitation. Perhaps I was still expecting that."

"It doesn't alter the fact that I did shoot you."

"No. Nothing can change that. The only thing we  _can_  change is the way we react to it. Now that you know these memories are real, we can go on from there. It won't be easy. I've watched you react to any mention of GP and I know I do the same thing. But I want to get past it and come to terms with you. I missed you, Avon. I'd like to think you missed me. We can work together well and always have, and even when we couldn't agree, I found I enjoyed arguing with you more than agreeing with anyone else."

"More sentiment."

"No. The truth. What's more, I think you enjoyed my company."

"Which means nothing."

"Doesn't it, Avon? Then why did you shoot me? Don't say it was simply to protect yourself or even that it was an instinctive reaction. Just as it hurt me more to think that you would shoot me, I think it hurt you more to think I would betray you."

Avon dropped his eyes, turning away a moment later. Speaking earnestly to the wall, he said in a low voice, "It was worse than when I learned the truth about Anna. She had never been anything but false, but you-- Damn you, Blake, all it would have taken was one word from you!"

"I know, Avon. I'm more sorry than I can say." He came up behind Avon, drained and exhausted from the exertions of the day and the emotions of the moment, wanting to put his arms around Avon and reassure him, uncertain if he had gained the right to do it. But Avon's shoulders quivered fractionally, and Blake suspected he would come apart completely if he didn't let go. With his remaining strength, he caught Avon's arm and tried to turn him. Avon resisted him at first, then his shoulders sagged and he turned. Tears had made tracks down his cheeks, and his eyes looked like twin abysses. When Blake caught his breath sharply and reached out to him, Avon tensed momentarily then he grabbed for Blake as if he were a life preserver and held him with all his strength.

Neither of them spoke. It was enough simply to hold on and relish each other's survival. It didn't mean there would be no further problems, simply that they had agreed to face them as they came, knowing that it was possible after all.

Finally, Blake felt Avon begin to make withdrawing motions and he said quietly, "I thought I'd lost you."

"Well, yes," Avon replied in a slightly hoarse voice. "I had some doubts myself." He freed himself then made a grab at Blake as he wavered. "Enough of this. You are going to bed and I expect no arguments from you."

With great care, he guided Blake over to bed, helped him into it, and drew up the covers, settling them about him. "Go to sleep." His voice was stern but it held warmth.

"What about the device?" Blake asked muzzily, fatigue all but smothering him in its intensity.

"I will finish it."

He gathered his strength long enough to prop himself up on one elbow, struggling against Avon's restraining hands--odd how gentle they were. "No, you will not. Not tonight. You are every bit as tired as I am. I suspect the only reason you haven't collapsed is because you're too stubborn to fall down." The medical unit had two beds in it and he made a feeble gesture toward the second one. "Why don't you stretch out there. I think I'd feel more comfortable if you were at hand." He wasn't sure how well that argument would work and suspected he'd said it because Avon might be more comfortable if he didn't have to let Blake out of his sight.

Avon nodded, and for the first time allowed Blake to see how tired he really was. He bustled around a moment tidying up the work table and checking the device while Blake fought sleep to watch him, then he removed his boots, moving with the clumsiness of the totally exhausted, and finally stripped down to his shorts. Blake let his eyes close as he heard Avon climb into the other bed.

"Avon?"

"Now what, Blake?"

"Maybe tonight we'll find out why..."

"Why?" Avon prodded.

"Why we were made to forget."

"Avon was so drained that even his sarcasm sounded diluted. "Well now, that will be a treat worth waiting for."

*** *** ***

Tarrant dreamed. A vast darkness surrounded him and suddenly there was light, warm and glowing, but he could not interact with it, nor did he want to. It was as if he were a spectator at some vast play, and for a long time he lay passive watching eons float past. Stars were born and planets formed, all bright and glorious, and he, as a pilot, was awed at the forces at work in the universe. His training enabled him to be closer to the glory that was space than most people and as he watched worlds rise and life begin, he felt excitement pulse through him.

Eventually the dream settled down to one world, this one. If it had a name, it was not a part of the dream, but that didn't matter, it was the World. It was beautiful. Hot and steamy and tropical at first, its life seethed and churned in the sea, primordial soup, and there was such variety as he could hardly begin to imagine. When the first timid creatures emerged from the pale pink waters and ventured onto the land, he urged them on, eager to see what would develop. Large beasts, vaguely like the dinosaur, smaller creatures with greater brains, eventually driving the saurians to extinction. Finally the beings walked upright and became humanoid, with blueish skins and long, narrow skulls. They had 4 fingered hands instead of five, and their language was beyond his comprehension, but they were people.

He watched their civilization form, vast monoliths trying to scratch the sky, long, communal housing units and vast marketplaces being replaced by a kind of beehive effect as the people built a culture which seemed to consist of interlocking social units. They bred rapidly, gradually covering every bit of the surface of the planet in higher and higher structures which sometimes extended far beneath the earth.

Though Tarrant could never understand their language which consisted of chime-like notes and slight variations in body language and color of the skin tone as well as pitch and intensity of the chimes, he realized that a fear spread across the world that the people would die out, smothered by their incredibly vast numbers. Various plans were drawn up, some to include space travel to try to reach the nearby planets, two of which were capable of supporting life. The scientists worked long and hard, designing and building the craft that would carry huge numbers of the population to empty worlds where space would not be at such a premium.

But problems developed, arguments over who was to go and who was to stay, until those departing began to look upon those remaining as inferior beings unable to face a new and dangerous future, and the stay-at-homes regarded those who meant to depart as exiles, driven out for their unworthiness.

If the colony ships could have been ready in time, it might have worked, but feuds and riots broke out among the construction workers and pushed back the deadlines again and again. Terrorism developed, and sabotage, and one of the colony ships was blown up before safeguards could be taken. After that, it was almost every man for himself, and small wars broke out on every continent. It escalated and suddenly there was no longer a population problem any more. There was scarcely a population.

The planet was desolated, most life died and those who survived went underground, living in caves, gradually changing, altered by the hard radiation in the atmosphere. Though they were largely resistant, they could not help but alter and as the years passed, their numbers grew smaller and smaller and they feared that their race would die out entirely.

Some of the remaining scientists proposed a theory that Tarrant couldn't understand, not without direct translation, but which altered the form of the beings still more. Instead of flesh and blood, they transformed themselves into energy beings and fed on the excesses of radiation that still clung to the world, so that by the time the Federation appeared on the scene, the planet was no longer hot and it was deemed suitable for a base.

The natives didn't know what to make of the humans who came here. Timid and shy of strangers, they did not dare to face them but instead drifted among them powered down so to be invisible and made little impact on Federation instrumentation. Though the natives feared the troopers and officers and found them strange and incompatible, they had been alone so long and had dealt with the possible death of their species for so many years that they decided to take the risk and interact with the people on the base.

When first some of them appeared to the Federation, they were either ignored or shunned, and they realized that they were feared. Unable to understand why when they meant no harm, they tried a different approach and instead of appearing and attempting direct communication, they chose to communicate through the medium of dreams. The subconscious mind was a favorite place of exploration for them and they dove enthusiastically into the minds of the humans, only to be horrified at the evil and death and destruction they found there. Aghast, they studied the invaders of their world and realized that they were an implacable enemy, a danger to them if they realized the planet was inhabited, even by beings so different as to pose no threat to their military might.

So they became aggressive in their own right, sending evil, twisted dreams to the troopers, finding horrible memories deep in their minds and intensifying them until sleep became a thing to be feared. Repeated communiques went back to Space Command Headquarters, claiming the base was unhealthy, that something in the air was affecting the emotional stability of the personnel and that the longer they remained, the less effective would the battle force become.

It must have been about the time of the Andromedan war, Tarrant realized, for suddenly the base was recalled, and the war was used as an excuse, but the place was abandoned in haste as if those who had served here could not stay long enough to pack supplies or to strip the place so it would be of no use to pirates or scavengers who came after.

Soon the natives were alone again, bitter and tainted by the evil of their invaders. They decided that they had fought the battle wrongly and decided that if ever humans came to their world again, they would try more peaceful means of contact. Surely all humans were not as evil as the ones in the black uniforms.

It was then that Tarrant saw himself in the dream, bringing his ship down roughly, holding it together long enough to prevent anyone from being hurt, and he lived again through his relief at their survival and his concern that no one had been injured. He realized that he must have been broadcasting his feelings all the way down and wondered if the natives had picked up on them so easily. It seemed they had. Even more so, they had watched him and Soolin and Vila tend Blake while he was ill, and noticed Vila keeping a careful eye upon Avon. Somehow, in spite of the friction that existed within the group, the natives had divined that this particular small band of invaders was different from the Federation, even Avon.

So the natives tried to make contact again, this time by the giving of good dreams. They had seen the memories that Avon and Blake had been unable to bring to the surface and had almost destroyed Avon in the process, but upon realizing how difficult it was for him and all of them, the natives had again regrouped.

They had decided that the only way to make contact was to meet a human face to face, and to do that, they had to exert their influence over one of them. Realizing he had been chosen, Tarrant looked back at his foolhardy and ill advised expedition to the surface and realized he had been driven to it by the natives, who needed someone to contact and who had opted for him. They wanted to present their case to one of the newcomers and had got his attention without his realizing it.

 _You've got me here_ , he thought.  _Now what do you want of me?_

He didn't think they could take answers from his mind. They were not a telepathic species, and the effort it had taken them to ask him to accompany them had drained several of them to the point that they had been forced to go off to recharge themselves. Though they had studied the Federation artifacts in the two years the base had been identified, they had made only the most rudimentary beginnings at translating the oral language, though they frequently browsed through the books that someone had left here at the time of the evacuation. Remembering how a stack of books had tipped over one day with no evident cause, Tarrant realized what had happened.

He knew he was not really awake though he was conscious, and he watched, dazed and confused, as a word appeared before him in the air, spelled out in neat, precise letters. "Friendly?"

It took him a moment to realize the natives wanted to know if he meant them harm or not, and he concentrated for all he was worth to reassure them. He knew they did not intend to harm him, though they had the power to do so. "Yes." He tried to imagine the word written out, realizing their vocal cords could not being to approximate Terran, though they knew some of the meanings of written words. He pictured himself scratching out questions and answers in the dust with a stick and tried to convey that thought to them. At least it would give him more control.

As if they understood, he felt the dreamscape fade away as if a vast vidscreen had been snapped off, and he opened his eyes to the small dark cave. several of the natives hovered close at hand and a much larger number of them crowded into the doorway watching him, the children with round mouths and eyes as if fascinated by his presence.

One of the beings approached him. He didn't know if it was the same one that had confronted him before or not, but again he felt the attempted communication, again the word, *Come.* He followed, wondering if they would stop him if he tried to escape but reluctant to test it. Led outside, he saw it was morning, the pale sunlight slanting down from the opposite direction, and he realized that a great deal of time had passed. The others would be looking for him.

But he couldn't help that. His present course was too important to interrupt. The aliens had driven away the personnel of the base who had had the means to depart. Should the aliens turn on him and the others, they were trapped here until Orac could find a ship to take them away.

So he followed the being he had decided was the headman to a level stretch of ground, dry and dusty. Here the headman stopped and bent over. In a moment, neat precise letters complete with punctuation appeared on the ground before him.  _"You--mean no harm?"_

Tarrant snatched up a stick and printed his answer in the dirt below.  _"No. I mean no harm."_

_"Will not bring--evil dreams."_

That made Tarrant hesitate, for surely some of their dreams were nightmares, Avon's for instance.  _"Not on purpose,"_  he wrote back.

_"?"_

_"We do not mean to bring evil dreams. Sometimes it just happens."_

A pause whilst that was mulled over, then the answer,  _"Understood. We bring the good dreams, to be friends."_

Tarrant doubted Avon would consider that sufficient, and the bittersweet dreams he had of Zeeona or Dayna hardly seemed proof of friendship. But the aliens had different concepts about many things. He wondered how he could ask about the dreams that Avon and Blake had, the ones that seemed more real than reality.  _"Do you create the dreams or just make them happen?"_  he asked.

That took a long time, which was understandable as the creatures had to translate back into their own language and come up with an answer that could be conveyed in their limited experience with printed Terran.  _"Many happen. Some we bring. Two of humans dream memories hidden. We play games, subconscious mind. Bodies not physical, games not physical. We see nearly entire subconscious. Humans only see part. More comes in sleep. We awaken buried memories."_

"Why?"

"To help. Two are very sad. Buried memories make happy."

Tarrant had seen no evidence of happiness, but now he wrote,  _"Humans are content to keep the subconscious hidden."_

_"Understand."_

Tarrant continued.  _"But you must go carefully with Avon. He is not well."_

"Will be more well after."

Wonderful. The aliens wanted to play psychostrategist with Avon. Tarrant knew well that such attempts could be dangerous, even if the aliens' entire mentation was conscious. Did that mean they were far more highly evolved than humans or only different. If it were the former, he didn't want to irritate them, if the latter, he must still go carefully.  _"You must not hurt him or any of us,"_  he wrote.

_"Do not want humans to go. We like the dreams."_

"To us, the subconscious mind is private."

The headman drew back slightly and looked at Tarrant, then reached out to touch the side of his head. Resisting an urge to draw back, Tarrant felt the vibration effect again and wondered what pictures the creature drew from his mind. But it was only momentary. The being drew away with a gesture that was reminiscent of a human sigh, though the accompanying sound of chimes was very faint.  _"Have offended?"_  the being asked.

_"No, but have made us uncomfortable."_

"You will go away?"

"One of us is hurt, recovering from injuries. When he is well, we must go away."

"One of you made injuries."

How to explain that.  _"Yes, but it was a mistake and he is sorry."_  He doubted Avon would put it that way, but when one was limited to scratching words in the dirt, one had to simplify.

 _"Understand sorry. To go away, ship is needed."_  Another sigh.

_"Yes. We must send for a ship."_

"More strangers come?"

"Yes."

"No. No more strangers come. Strangers are too different. No more strangers ever come here."

Tarrant felt a sudden sinking sensation.  _"But we must get away."_

"Ship you want, ship we give."

Tarrant stared at the words then turned and gaped at the headman. "One of your colony ships?" he asked in disbelief, then scratched out the words hastily.  _"Weren't they all destroyed?"_

"One is left. Prepare and bring it we will. In one day."

"Will I be taught to fly it."

The headman chimed brightly and all the others echoed it. Tarrant stared at them and suddenly realized it was laughter.  _"Already know,"_  the headman printed for him.  _"Answers in subconscious mind. Tarant is pilot already. Knowledge easy to give."_

Tarrant didn't correct the misspelling of his name. Instead he tried to find the buried knowledge but nothing emerged. He hoped it would come when confronted with a colony ship. Surely such a thing was far too big and noticeable--and probably too slow--to use for long.

 _"Scout ship,"_  the headman spelled out.  _"Smaller. Faster. To search new world before colony ship lands."_

 _"Armed?"_  Tarrant wrote.  _"We must defend ourselves."_

"Armed for our people, not for you. A weapon of the mind."

A weapon of the mind? Now what did that mean? That they used their minds to focus and aim the weapon or that it attacked the minds of their enemies. In either case it would be useless to Tarrant. But a ship could get them to a place where they might make better arrangements. Tarrant suspected that the differences between the aliens and humans might prove incompatible in the long run and the best thing he could do for his comrades was to accept the ship and get offworld as soon as possible.

 _"You will bring the ship tomorrow?"_  he scratched in the dirt.

_"Tomorrow."_

Tarrant straightened and stretched his back, then bent to write again.  _"I must return to my friends."_

"Can find them?"

"Yes."

"Go. Tomorrow we bring ship to you."

The headman straightened too, glowing brightly. It swooped down upon Tarrant and put its hands on either side of his face, and for a moment, his head felt like it was tied to the side of a ship's drive unit, then he was staggering free, realizing that the headman had meant to part with him in the manner of his people. The other natives crowded around now, many of them touching him, then they began to dim their glow and when he gathered his scattered wits and shook the cobwebs from his brain, he was alone in the clearing.

He set off for the base as fast as he could go.

*** *** ***

Avon writhed and twisted in his sleep, struggling against the dreams that had taken him as soon as he had fallen asleep. He was back with the Greens again, talking to Dannal, and the little Green was refusing to discuss the Masters, who must have been their gods. Avon remembered how the natives had feared to mention the Masters and how he and Blake had speculated about them, and whether or not the Greens had been seeded at the Top of the World. In the dream, he stood back and considered it while his dream image talked to Dannal, listening with remarkable tolerance to his inane prattle. He had considered Dannal the best of the Greens, the most intelligent, and now Avon smiled as he realized that Dannal's obvious intelligence had led him to choose Avon as his hero. Avon shook his head. That was a task better left for Blake, who would probably relish it, but Avon never seriously discouraged Dannal.

The Masters! He tried to guide the dream in that direction, his first attempt at deliberate control, and the part of his mind that found puzzles fascinating and that drove him to solve them wondered how he could actively participate. Perhaps the mysterious natives had some contact with the Masters, or, more likely, they possessed mental powers which enabled them to interfere with a sleeping man's subconscious.

Accepting that as a tentative hypothesis, Avon watched himself and Blake suddenly swept away from the Top of the World, exchanging the plateau for a high-tech environment that was beyond his experience, while an alien being of human appearance confronted them. Avon tried to resist the dream now, but it had gone too far, and as he watched he was told that he and Blake could choose; to stay with the Greens and keep their friendship or to return to the Liberator and lose all memory of it. It would be as if it had never been.

Avon didn't want to lose Blake. He had never known a relationship before that made him feel so comfortable, so easy, so safe. Most of the time he had chosen to avoid the risk, but when he had reached out, he had usually been slapped down for it. Not being stupid, he had learned the lesson well, and only the freedom of the Greens' world had enabled him to take the risk. It seemed he had been wrong this time too.

But Blake gave the choice to him, watching him with a quiet smile, trusting him, and when Avon elected to go back, as the only possible solution, he knew his regret at his loss matched Blake's own. Blake had insisted it was always possible for them to recapture what they had found, but they had never recaptured it; Blake had gone and Avon's pursuit of him grew more and more bitter. Blake's avoidance had done him no good either.

Had he been wrong to trust Blake? He suspected he had, but he had been given another chance and he realized with shock that he meant to take it. He had seen himself fall apart over the past few years and knew that he lacked the resiliency to bounce back from any more tragedies on his own. Blake was a talisman to keep him whole, and it seemed he functioned the same way for Blake. Now if only the 'Masters', Maldorin, to be precise, didn't step in again and erect the barriers once more. Avon wondered if that was possible and suspected that it would never occur to that powerful game player that its barricades had been breached. Once he and Blake had been discarded, Maldorin would forget them completely and move on to its next game. Avon hoped he was not foolish to believe such a thing, but he knew his memories had not been removed, simply blocked, and the others were aware of them this time too, as was Orac. He resolved to discuss the situation with Orac and establish certain parameters; if the computer detected evidence that Avon had forgotten again, Orac was to reinstate his memories. Surely that would give him the necessary security to allow the risk.

The dream swept him back to the Liberator and he watched himself and Blake regroup, biting back instinctive reactions as they erected walls against each other. From his new perspective, Avon realized that to do so was to deny himself chances he might otherwise have had, and though his observer persona ground his teeth at the sentiment involved, Avon chose to ignore it. He had never understood the need for sentiment to prove he cared, but that did not mean he would deny it any longer either.

He awoke abruptly as if something had startled him, realizing it was Blake, still caught in his dream, crying, "Avon!"

Avon went to him, took him by the shoulders and shook him lightly. "Blake. Wake up, Blake."

Blake's eyes opened, and he stared up, slightly perplexed, blinking for focus. He turned to Avon in momentary confusion, then realization filled his eyes. "Avon," he said with contentment.

"I understand why we were made to forget, Blake," Avon replied at once.

"Yes, so do I. This time, it was as if I ran the dream myself. For you too?" When Avon nodded, he smiled and sat up carefully, favoring his middle, and instead of withdrawing at the reminder, Avon helped him sit up.

"I doubt Maldorin will bother with us again," Blake continued, rubbing his temples as if to massage away a headache. "We've probably been long forgotten."

"I have resolved to set up certain safeguards involving Orac to make sure we do not forget again," Avon replied. He felt better this morning than he had in years, as if he could effortlessly do anything he set his mind to. Gathering up his clothes, he vanished into the fresher and cleaned up, emerging dressed. "The sooner we leave this place the better."

"I agree, Avon, but we've got to find Tarrant first."

"Yes, I suppose we must find him," Avon replied. "A good pilot is useful."

"Even when he's Tarrant," Blake replied and they shared a smile. "Give me a hand up and we can check with Orac and see if there's any news."

As Blake washed and dressed, Avon relaxed still further, relieved to note that Blake didn't intend any soul-stirring discussions this morning. They would go on, accepting the potential relationship as a given, seeing where it took them. Avon wondered if Vila would notice.

He had his answer sooner than expected because Vila came bursting into the medical unit. "Blake, have you seen Av--" he began then broke off abruptly as he noticed Avon at Blake's side. "Oh, there you are," he said as if he hadn't been worrying only a moment before, adding, "I thought you'd vanished like Tarrant."

"Surely you don't imagine I would have gone looking for him?" Avon asked.

"Well, no, but he's still missing, Avon, and Soolin and I are going to start a search right away and we want you to come with us."

"Oh you want me to come with you, do you?"

"We don't know where he went. If he's out there hurt, the more of us searching, the better. Besides," he added practically, "We don't know what's out there."

"And you expect me to protect you from the glowing aliens," Avon replied positively. "Do you know how to defend yourself against them?"

"No. That's why we want  _you_  there."

"Assuming I would know a defense method, there could be logic in what you say, but what makes you think I have any interest in going after him?"

"Because we need a pilot."

"He's right, Avon, we do need a pilot."

"When Orac locates a rescue ship, it will have a pilot already," Avon countered.

"You can't mean to just leave him," objected Vila. His eyes took on a shifty look and he added, "Besides, you can't. I say we look for him, and I'm in charge here."

"No, you are not," chorused Avon and Blake, breaking off to share an amused look as they heard themselves.

"It took you long enough," Vila replied, not in the least put out. "I don't like being in charge. I'd rather leave it--and all the work--to somebody else. Now what are we going to do about Tarrant?"

"We'll go out looking for him after breakfast," Blake replied.

"Don't imagine you're going," Avon challenged him.

"I'll stay here and make sure you can get in again when you come back."

It was clear that Vila had not considered that possibility and his face fell. "D'you think they'd lock us out?" he asked in considerable dismay.

"No, but we're not welcome here," said a new voice from the doorway and Vila jerked around in almost comical startlement. Tarrant stood there, trailed by Soolin, and though the pilot looked rather dusty and windblown, he bore no trace of injury.

"Where the  _hell_  have  _you_  been?" Avon demanded furiously.

Tarrant strode into the room, brushing dust from his clothes. "Worried about me?" he asked lightly.

"Not particularly."

Tarrant studied him a long moment, then, apparently satisfied, he relaxed and cast himself into the only comfortable chair in the room. "I didn't mean to vanish," he explained with no evidence of contrition. "They did it--the natives. They made me go looking for them, though I didn't guess it right away."

"You've been with the natives?" Blake asked, predictably fascinated. Avon had an ugly feeling that Blake would now begin a campaign to free them from whatever might oppress them.

"They'll get on quite well without your intervention, Blake," he muttered under his breath, and Blake, annoying as he was, glanced up and favored Avon with a reassuring and complacent smile before turning his attention back to Tarrant.

"Yes, I've been with the natives, Blake," Tarrant replied. "Dreaming to order, you might say. They don't communicate easily with us, and since they are comfortable with the subconscious mind--it's almost conscious with them--they chose to communicate that way. They showed me their history."

"Did they by chance drive the Federation away?" Avon asked, less interested in the planet's past than in his own future.

"Yes, because they found their minds evil and unpleasant and full of nasty dreams. That's why they stepped in and influenced our dreams." Tarrant glanced around, settled on Vila. "They didn't feed me. Vila, why don't you go program me a substantial breakfast."

Vila started to complain, and, laughing, Blake intervened. "Why don't we all have breakfast--unless we have a deadline to leave here?"

"Actually we do. How does tomorrow suit you?"

Blake had started his chair toward the door but now he braked it and looked up sharply. "Tomorrow?"

"Aside from the simple fact that Orac has not found us a ship, you look remarkably unconcerned," Avon told Tarrant. "Did they choose to influence your mind?"

"Such as it is?" Vila put in gleefully.

"Actually they're in such a hurry to be rid of us that they've decided to give us their ship."

"Their ship?" Avon asked suspiciously.

As they walked to the command center, Tarrant explained about the proposed colony ships and the way the natives had feuded among themselves, breaking up into warring factions that had ultimately destroyed most life on the planet. "One ship is left," Tarrant ended. "I can fly it."

"It has always one of your more modest boasts that you could fly anything," Avon returned, "But this time I am skeptical."

Tarrant grinned at him. "Don't you think that if they were able to remove the memory blocks for you and Blake they couldn't sleep-teach me to fly it?"

"I prefer to rely upon something more concrete than sleep-teaching," Avon replied, though he knew Tarrant was a capable pilot who could probably make sense of the ship, given time and a little help.

Soolin led the way into the command center, the only place where the food programmers had been activated. "I have to admit I won't miss this place. But where will we go? How fast is their ship, Tarrant?"

He opened his mouth to deny knowledge of its speed, then he looked surprised. "It can go time distort 14."

"Interesting," said Avon, still wary over the natives' gift. "Did you do the mathematical conversions in your mind?"

"No. The natives have been reading everything they could find here. They can't speak our language but they've learned to read it. That's how we communicated, by writing."

"I would have enjoyed communicating with them," said Blake.

"I see no need for further communication," Avon replied.

"But they've done so much for us, Avon," objected Blake.

That was true and not even in front of the others did Avon plan to deny it. "They didn't do it for us, Blake. They did it for their own entertainment. I resent being someone's viscast melodrama."

"I'd resent it too if it hadn't turned out so well."

That made the other three turn and stare from him to Avon and back again as if they could read upon their foreheads everything that had happened over the past 24 hours. Surprisingly self conscious, Avon strode over and began to program breakfast. "In any case," he said, "We must leave this place. Where shall we take our unknown ship? Do I dare hope it is armed?"

"It's only armed with mind weapons," Tarrant replied. "And we can't use them."

"Wonderful. It will be necessary to be very cautious."

"I have a back-up base," Blake put in. "It should be only a few systems from here if we're anywhere near where I think we are."

"Then why didn't you have Orac send for a ship from there?" Vila asked.

"First of all, I wasn't sure who'd been captured, if that base had been compromised," Blake returned, meeting Avon's suddenly suspicious look. "I didn't want to take that kind of chance when the rest of you had risked so much to get me free. But mostly, I had unfinished business here and we seemed safe enough for me to wait until it could be concluded."

"And has it been concluded?" Tarrant asked brightly, a knowing grin on his face.

Blake turned to Avon and smiled, and he found his suspicion melting away. Damn the man for his power to touch him. "I think it's well begun," replied Blake. "Don't you agree, Avon?"

"I see no need to stand about discussing it," Avon returned curtly, but he held back his sarcasm knowing Blake could read agreement in his expression and in his eyes.

"Not when we've an evacuation to plan," Blake agreed. "We'd better check with Orac to see if my alternate base still has its integrity, and if so we can go there."

"At least until you've recovered," Avon replied.

"And then what?" Vila asked. "Roam the galaxy in a ship with weapons we can't use? Why not stay there? Where else is there to go?"

"You can't mean you  _want_  to fight the Federation, Vila?" Soolin asked him skeptically, though she had not objected to Blake's choice of destination.

"Well, no, I'd rather stay safe someplace far from the Federation, where I can find a lot of nice things to steal and some good bars, but I did a lot of thinking when I was in charge here." He ignored their derisive groans. "And I decided," he plunged on, waving his hands for silence, "That we'd better tidy things up, get rid of the Federation first and  _then_  I can start stealing things for fun again. What do you say, Avon? Besides we could always start by doing a really big number on the Federation Banking System."

"For once you actually make sense, Vila. Hit the Federation where it really hurts, in its bankroll. Between myself and Orac, we can bring down the government through interference with the currency. What do you say, Blake?"

"I'd like to consider it. There are a lot of variables, and we'd need coordination with every rebel group we could reach. I know I can count on you. We'll see what else can be managed."

Avon hesitated. "If word of Gauda Prime has got out, your people will hardly welcome me with open arms, Blake. I am not entirely certain going to your base will be the best option."

"My people are about to learn that we're a team, Avon. Any of them who object to that won't be working with me any longer." He nodded abruptly as if to add, "So there!" Avon felt comfortable and curiously relaxed as if he had finally put down a heavy weight he had been carrying for the past ten years and had just realized how enjoyable freedom was. Maybe this was freedom, though it matched none of his previous descriptions.

"What about the rest of us, Blake?" Soolin asked.

"You're more than welcome. I can use your particular skills--in fact you'll be a blessing." He glanced up and caught a sardonic expression on Avon's face and knowing far too well how to read it, added, "But in any case, you're my friends and I want you with me. There's a lot to do and I'd rather do it with people I can trust."

Vila grinned in delight, though he began to complain immediately about the dangers ahead, and Tarrant looked satisfied, intrigued, and determined to do things his way. Avon foresaw fireworks ahead when those two stubborn types, Tarrant and Blake, tried to butt heads. As for Soolin, she simply nodded as if it were a given and went to pass out the breakfast plates. "And you, Avon?" she asked. "You're joining Blake's rebellion again?"

"No," said Avon, which made all of them jerk around to stare at him, though only Blake looked unconcerned. After a moment though, Vila's eyes began to twinkle. Vila had never been the fool Avon had called him, though he'd had his moments.

"No," Avon repeated. "I'm not joining Blake's rebellion again. I've decided to become a part of Avon and Blake's rebellion. It has a much better ring to it."

"I think you mean Blake and Avon's rebellion?" Blake challenged gleefully. "Don't you think I deserve top billing?"

Avon favored him with a genuine smile."Oh, no, Blake," he said. "Let's be fair about this. In the event of doubt, we'll do it alphabetically."


End file.
